If you're interested in catching croakers, now's the time to go. Boats drifting and anchored on Reef #8, the Star Site, have had all the hardheads they could handle over the past few days. Size of croakers in the box has been increasing too. Good numbers of fish over 12 inches have shown up, and those of even larger "Cadillac" proportions have been mixed in as well.

Bottom rigs baited with clams, bloodworms, shrimp and Fishbites have been irresistable to hardheads. Croakers fight hard and provide great fun for anglers of all ages. They're also good table fare. They make for a fine fish fry, and can be turned into delicious fish cakes as well. In addition to hardheads, bottom fishermen encountered blowfish, kingfish, spot, snapper blues and small trout. Flounder action in the Bay has been fair, with flatties reported among rubble of most of the reef sites. Flukers on Katy Did worked the Brown Shoal reefs Wednesday for 10 keeper flatfish. The Ocean flounder bite was good today. Wes Olson and his crew kept their limit of 12 fat flatfish to 5 pounds while drifting southeast of DB Buoy. Edwin "Max" Maxwell jigged up his limit of quality flounder, including the plump pool winner, while fluking with Capt. Ricky Yakimowicz. Offshore tuna catches have been spotty. A few yellowfins came from 100 to 200 fathoms of the Baltimore, usually taken by trollers there at first light. Captain Bill Swords and his guys on "Swords Fish" had a simultaneous hookup of a large blue marlin and a jumbo bigeye in the Bight of the Baltimore this morning. The blue jumped off after a short ride, but they spent several hours with 22 pounds of heat on the bigeye before a heartbreaking separation of the line.

Some large bigeyes have been boated by crews fishing this week's White Marlin Open. Chip Caruso landed a 279 pound bigeye aboard the Pipedreamer with Captain Max Morris and Mate Danny Prettyman. Captains Brent and Dave on Katy Did fished offshore Tuesday. They came across a truck tire covered with growth floating in the Baltimore. That piece of flotsam yielded 15 dolphin and 31 triggerfish. The guys finished off the trip by deep dropping for 10 nice tilefish to 33 pounds.