We’re coming down to fish in August. What should we expect to catch? Where
can we go from the shore?

August is a great month to take the youngsters fishing for the first time.
Unlike the early spring and fall, there’s an abundance of little fish that
bite so the kids can learn how to fish without getting bored. Even the
fishing locations in North Ocean City such as the Northside Park at 127th
Street and the Isle of Wight off of Route 90 are active. The kids can also
catch blue crabs at these locations.

For the kids, your best bet is to keep your hooks on the small side, either
size #6 or #8 fresh water type hooks, and rig them up on hi/low top and
bottom rigs. Use sinkers in the ½ to one-ounce range and bait up with
bloodworm, artificial Fishbite bloodworm, or nightcrawlers. In a pinch, cut
Calamari box squid into little tiny pieces. Norfolk spot, small croakers
and sand perch are the usual fare. Fish the high tides in these areas as
low tide can be very slow. Crabbing in August, is usually active though you
may not catch a lot of “keepers.” But young ones are happy just seeing the
small crabs hang onto the chicken necks. It’s a great experience of “catch
and release.”

“What kind of fish can we catch in these two places?”

Spot, sand perch and small croakers are the usual fare. Sometimes anglers
will hook into a big ray, a small flounder, snapper blue, sea trout, or
small flounder. If you want to catch larger fish, fish in downtown Ocean
City where the water is deeper.

“What about the pier behind Convention Hall?”

Fishing here is similar to fishing the North Side Park and the Isle of
Wight. The only difference is that you are more likely to catch croakers,
sea robins, and snapper blues along with the spot. Small flounder are often
caught there for the anglers casting way out with an occasional keeper
flounder reported. Again, this area is relatively shallow. You can also
catch crabs there, but it’s not quite as good crabbing as the other two more
northern locations. Use worms, little pieces of squid, or shiners here.

“Ninth Street Pier?”

The little public pier at 9th Street is an excellent place to fish in
August. It can get crowded, but there’s lots of fish to catch. Flounder,
sea robins, snapper blues, spot, blowfish, croaker, little sea bass along
with an occasional drum, tautog, sheepshead, or striper is the fare. You can
catch almost anything from the 9th Street Pier! Bait up with shiners, live
minnows or live spot for flounder. Use worms or little strips of squid for
the little fish.

“I hear the bulkhead from 2nd to 4th street is good…”

It can be a great place to fish, but there are lots of snags. If you fish it
just right, you can catch some really nice fish there. What you are dealing
with at the bulkhead is a drop down of 8 to 15 feet. If you cast into the
channel, the water is 20 to 30 feet deep. Between the two, is a steep drop
off where there are lots of snags and lost rigs. Avoid getting hung in this
abrupt drop off, and you will avoid a good amount of snags. Either fish
straight down, (Flip out just a little bit so you don’t get hung in the
pilings), or cast out into the channel with enough sinker weight to hold the
bottom so your line doesn’t get sweep into the underwater ledge with all the
snags!

There are times when the water runs so swift there that is impossible to
hold bottom in the channel, so you must fish “in close.” Anglers using live
minnows, live spot, live finger mullet, or frozen shiners catch a surprising
number of flounder here in August. Big blues come thru here as well. Just
look at all the boats fishing there on the slacking tides! It’s a good
spot! What you want to do is look at your tide table, and fish a couple
hours on either side of high or low tide.

The neat thing about the bulkhead is that there’s always little fish for the
kids to catch during any tide. It’s full of little sea bass in August for
kids using cut squid, worms, sand fleas or shiners. With sand fleas, you
may catch tautog, triggerfish, sheephead, or a striper. With worms or squid
you may catch croaker, bluefish or spot. At night, there’s a good chance of
catching blues, shad, stripers or trout. Though at night, the better action
is fishing from the Route 50 Bridge or Oceanic Pier.


The Route 50 Bridge is famous for it’s fishing. Anglers can fish all along
the Bridge with the same baits as mentioned above at the bulkhead.
Flounder, blues, and tautog are the targeted fish during the day. At night,
in August, jigging lures beneath the lights, bring in stripers, blues,
trout, and croakers. Croakers will also take bait such as shiners or squid.
Popular lures are swimming shad lures, Gotcha Plugs, bucktails with plastic
worms attached and soft bodies on lead heads. Anglers also use live spot,
live eels, and live finger mullet for the flounder, trout and stripers.

The Oceanic Pier is a pay pier at the southern most end of Philadelphia Ave.
It has excellent flounder fishing in August with all the usual flounder
baits, tautog at the end of the pier, and croaker runs that are good but
unpredictable. (Usually at the end of the outgoing tide.) At night, anglers
jig Gotcha Plugs and Spec Rigs for blues, shad, trout, and occasional
striper.

The Inlet sees all kinds of fish, though it is a little more difficult to
fish because of the rocks and many snags. If you’re good with lures you can
catch blues, shad, trout, and stripers at night and early, early in the
morning. With bait you can catch flounder, tautog, triggerfish and
sheepshead by day, and some nice stripers at night with live eels or live
spot. At slack tide at night, anglers let live bait swim in the water with
little or no weight for stripers.

The Ocean Pier juts out into the ocean and runs parallel to the Inlet.
Anglers catch flounder, spot, croaker, snapper blues and lots of sharks and
skates. Squid, worms, and finger mullet is good bait there.

“What’s biting in the surf in August?”

There’s nothing big in the surf, but it is usually active with small hooked
kingfish rigs and bloodworms or artificial Fishbite bloodworms. Kingfish,
spot, small trout, and croaker will hit the worms. Snapper blues usually
come around in August and they like chunks of finger mullet. Fresh bunker
is a favorite bait any time of the year. Use little pieces for the little
fish, and bigger chunks for sharks and skates at night. Usually we don’t
see many keeper stripers in August… but occasionally someone catches one.

Anglers in boats do well on bigger flounder using live spot or live finger
mullet. The usual live minnows or shiners work well too. Fish the main east
channel in the deeper water for the larger fish. Around the Rt. 90 Bridge,
anglers drifting small hooks and worms can catch spot and small croaker.
Larger croakers are usually around somewhere. Look for them in 8 to 15 foot
of water in the Thorofare, main east channel from 14th street to 9th Street,
in the bay behind Assateague, and the Inlet.

Flounder move offshore in August too, so boaters with boats big enough to go
to the inshore wrecks pick up nice sized flounder as well as sea bass.
Tautog, triggerfish, and sheepshead can also be caught offshore on the
wrecks sites, or along the south jetty casting sand fleas close to the
rocks. If you don’t have a boat, try one of Ocean City’s many ocean going
party boats for sea bass, flounder, and croaker offshore. Bay party boats
go for flounder and croaker.

In the Inlets, nice stripers can be caught early in the morning before the
boat traffic gets up and at night.

Fishing in August in Ocean City, Maryland… fun for the whole family…

Good fishing….

Need bait and tackle? Come see us at Oyster Bay Tackle, Ocean City, Maryland (410-524-3433) or Fenwick Tackle, Fenwick Island, Delaware (302-539-7766), OR Shop Online!