I took my family to Ocean City for a one night trip. We got to our hotel at 10:45pm on 5/19 and I was out at the pier by 11:30pm. On 5/19, I went by myself to scope it out... I wanted to make sure that my wife and kids would be able to catch something the next day. On 5/20, I went to the pier with the family a couple of times.
5/19 (11:30pm - 4:00am): I personally only landed one shad on 1/8 oz. spec rig. I missed three huge hits on 1 oz Spro bucktail that was left drifting in the current. I actually had fish on twice, but somehow couldn't get it to set properly. Lost the fish while reeling in... Not sure what was on, but it was definitely much heavier than the fairly large shad that I had caught earlier. As for the other people around me, I saw a lot of shad action and saw two undersized (less than 28") stripers get landed. Considering that I only caught one shad while others were continuing to hook up, I realized again that I'm not a very good lure fisherman.
5/20 (12:00pm - 1:45pm): Went with the family, hoping to get my wife and kids their first fish. There was strong current and kids got bored quickly without any action, so we left for the beach.
Went out to the beach and caught a lot of sand fleas. I wanted to try them out for bait. Played in sand, ate good food, and walked around.
5/20 (6:00pm - 9:00pm): As soon as I got there, someone had caught a 31" bluefish on the pier. The current was slow and I was using one rod with bait (sand fleas & squid) and another rod with spec rig (since I had paid for my wife's fishing entry, I figured why not). Then about an hour and a half later, there was a good bluefish and shad run. I called the wife in - she was taking a nap in the car with one of the kids. She landed her first fish. She hooked two shad, but lost one while landing. I caught a variety of fish: 2 skates, 2 horseshoe crabs, 3 shad, and 1 flounder... But didn't land a bluefish! Everyone around me was catching bluefish though. Actually, one guy who was literally 3' away from me had two double hook-ups. One was two bluefish and another was shad & bluefish. It was pretty crazy. The run lasted about an hour and I had to start packing up to leave for home shortly after. I am pretty sure I had a bluefish on at one point though. Lost hooks (mono line was cut) twice and lost one high-low rig after the reel's drag started screaming... Then snap! I was glad that my wife let me come back to the pier after the beach.
On a side note, I thought that the guys who work at the pier were knowledgeable and helpful. As for some of the customers... I had to cover my daughter's ears a couple of times because one of the guys would drop the F-bomb every other sentence loud enough for me to hear clearly. And he was more than 15-20' away... But I guess people like that are everywhere. There were other kids and elderly on the pier and I was hoping that he had common sense to tone down his language.
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5/19 (11:30pm - 4:00am): I personally only landed one shad on 1/8 oz. spec rig. I missed three huge hits on 1 oz Spro bucktail that was left drifting in the current. I actually had fish on twice, but somehow couldn't get it to set properly. Lost the fish while reeling in... Not sure what was on, but it was definitely much heavier than the fairly large shad that I had caught earlier. As for the other people around me, I saw a lot of shad action and saw two undersized (less than 28") stripers get landed. Considering that I only caught one shad while others were continuing to hook up, I realized again that I'm not a very good lure fisherman.
5/20 (12:00pm - 1:45pm): Went with the family, hoping to get my wife and kids their first fish. There was strong current and kids got bored quickly without any action, so we left for the beach.
Went out to the beach and caught a lot of sand fleas. I wanted to try them out for bait. Played in sand, ate good food, and walked around.
5/20 (6:00pm - 9:00pm): As soon as I got there, someone had caught a 31" bluefish on the pier. The current was slow and I was using one rod with bait (sand fleas & squid) and another rod with spec rig (since I had paid for my wife's fishing entry, I figured why not). Then about an hour and a half later, there was a good bluefish and shad run. I called the wife in - she was taking a nap in the car with one of the kids. She landed her first fish. She hooked two shad, but lost one while landing. I caught a variety of fish: 2 skates, 2 horseshoe crabs, 3 shad, and 1 flounder... But didn't land a bluefish! Everyone around me was catching bluefish though. Actually, one guy who was literally 3' away from me had two double hook-ups. One was two bluefish and another was shad & bluefish. It was pretty crazy. The run lasted about an hour and I had to start packing up to leave for home shortly after. I am pretty sure I had a bluefish on at one point though. Lost hooks (mono line was cut) twice and lost one high-low rig after the reel's drag started screaming... Then snap! I was glad that my wife let me come back to the pier after the beach.
On a side note, I thought that the guys who work at the pier were knowledgeable and helpful. As for some of the customers... I had to cover my daughter's ears a couple of times because one of the guys would drop the F-bomb every other sentence loud enough for me to hear clearly. And he was more than 15-20' away... But I guess people like that are everywhere. There were other kids and elderly on the pier and I was hoping that he had common sense to tone down his language.
