05/16/2025 | Sea Bass and Flounder Before the Storms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOy0l1xRpZU

Man, it just got done pouring at my house! We also had some crazy thunder, some wicked lightning and some very strong winds. All is well, but we’ve certainly had some active weather this evening with severe thunderstorms that rolled through the area. Thankfully most of the fish were caught before.

I had the pleasure of fishing on board the Captain Bob II out of Indian River Inlet today with my buddy Lloyd Whitehead from Harborside Bar & Grill for a new episode of Hooked on OC and it was a blast. We had good fishing with lots of keeper sea bass, some cod and even some pollock caught on board. I had 12 keeper sea bass and Lloyd had 8 and the first keeper flounder for the Captain Bob this season. It was also his Birthday. Happy Birthday Lloyd! Thanks for spending it with me.

The Miss Kathleen out of Bahia Marina had her first sea bass trip of the season today and it was good fishing with plenty of keepers around the rail.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported a better sea bass bite today with a couple of flounder in the mix as well.

Anglers fishing on board Lucky Break Charters with Captain Jason Mumford enjoyed some great flounder fishing on this morning’s trip.

Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run Charters had a nice mix of sea bass and flounder with a keeper tautog from yesterday’s trip.

Eamon Carey “Irish” caught and released his personal best tautog of 17.5 pounds while fishing with Captain Jon Azato on board No Limit out of Indian River.

Big Bird Cropper and Phil Heck had a great time catching a double limit of bluefish and releasing a bunch more while throwing surface poppers.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a good day of sea bass fishing with beautiful weather……until the ride home.

The Day After.. (after opening day of sea bass season, that is.)

At least the fog waited until Carol & George had deployed a 16 block unit on an artificial reef before closing in. With almost no visibility it was back to instrument navigation for most of the ride off. Then, with but two miles to go, visibility opened to the horizon and stayed that way.

Beautiful day. Saw something make a big hole in the water at our first stop. Mako? Big whatever it was.. Later we had a great look at a loggerhead sea turtle..

Nice.

Nice bite too. Not as many limits, (three) but a nicer grade of fish.

Few regulars would be surprised to learn George limited first. At 11:10 he boxed #15. Next would be a pair of limits just after one. I think everyone was in double digits. Shelly & I sure had fun. It does seem I am going to have to get used to being out-fished by a girl though..

Nicked a few red hake (ling) and even a couple tog. Spank tagged a 19inch female that swam away proud of her yellow ALS ribbon.

John & Jim split the pool – dead even on the balance beam. Common? No – but the same happened yesterday.

Ride home was just as nice as you could want

..until it wasn’t!

Dogone thunderstorm was plenty boisterous – gusts to 40 or so I reckon, rained like a cow……

Nevermind.

Rained hard.

Told my clients the blow would move offshore by the time we got to the wharf.

Did.

Now to see what tomorrow brings. Forecast has been all over the place. We’ll go see.

Cheers,

Monty