- Provide regular fishing action updates

- Provide fishing gear reviews

- Cover local watering holes and give you places to fish.

Get ready for a new year and new action from The Local Fisherman.

She said that even though they are tog fishing, flounder like structure too. They are almost at the end of their season and after this weekend will be fishing on a sign-up basis only. They will be doing some sign-up striper trips, probably in November. Spaces are limited and reservations a must.

Locations such as the Hill, Diamonds and Stone Rock have been a disappointment this year. Breaking rock and blues randomly pop up with a few mackerel mixed in throughout the mid-bay sector. Bottom fishing can be described as fair to good at the mouth of the Choptank, Stone Rock, Airplane Wreck, Cook, Blackwalnut, Todds and Benoni points.

Trollers have been putting out their spread at Herring Bay and working in depths from 22 to 38 feet of water to the north and south. Last week, slightly better catches of stripers were made a little below Chesapeake Beach on tandem rigged white and chartreuse bucktails, dark red hoses and medium spoons. Blues and mackerel are often included in their catches.

The chumming fleet has been converging on the Gooses, where the action continues to hold up. Bottom fishermen have been focusing on the lumps at the mouth of the West River, where the white perch action has been awesome.

On Monday, Paula Shafer (not related to the Late Night With David Letterman star) was on vacation with her husband (not Paul Schaefer) and visiting relatives; she was the pool winner with a nice keeper flounder.

Dave Davis was fishing with his grandson Noah and landed a nice keeper flattie. Noah also caught some nice croakers. Lot Gomer was on vacation from Puerto Rico and took the pool with a nice 4.5-pound flounder. Lot also had another nice size keeper flounder along with nice catches from friends Kenny and Theodore.

Clayton, Delaware resident and regular Skip Stewart won the onboard fish pool with a nice keeper flounder and just missed taking the lead from Jim Reynolds for the Monthly Mega Pot Contest. Several nice keeper flounders came over the rail

The Annual Mega Cash Pot Contest shot well over $400.00 and is growing by leaps and bounds and Faye Griffith from Seaford, Delaware is still in the lead with her 5.5-pound beauty that she caught the last part of June.

The Monthly Mega Cash Pot for the month of August is close to $100 and Jim Reynolds from Owings Mills, Md., is in the lead with a 3.96-pound flounder. Shirley said that it costs only $2.00 to enter the Mega Cash Pot Contest, and you could be lucky enough to take home the Mega Cash Bucks.

Shirley said that they will be Taug Tog Fishing at the end of September, and they plan to do some striper trips in the Fall. Mark your calendar now for these great trips.

Huh? A trout?

I get messages like this all the time. Of course, Dave’s holding a fish, so I call him right away.

“Dennis, you won’t guess where I am,” he says, then continues, “I’m with Glenn (Batson, a friend of ours from college) at his farm, catching trout.”

There’s more to the story. Glenn owns and operates Rainbow Paradise Trout Farm located in fertile Tioga County, Pennsylvania. This central Pennsylvania farm boasts catch-and-keep or catch-and-release fishing as well as fly fishing schools for those looking to fly fish.

The farm features trout of all species, from rainbow, brook and brown to tiger and golden trout. Glenn said that the ponds have thousands of trout, and there is actually a Trophy Pond with trout measuring from 14 to 30 inches as well.

For the angler looking to catch some fish, or the family looking to do some trout fishing, Rainbow Paradise Trout Farm is a great place.

For more information, log onto www.rainbowparadisetroutfarm.com or call Glenn at 814-274-8309.

I was fortunate enough to fish with the folks at Millington Baptist Church, and all 35 anglers aboard the boat landed flatties, with the high hook being over 20 fluke. The pool winner was a 5-1/2 pounder, and many keeper summer flounder were also caught.

We fished a number of places in the bay, from lower bay spots like Princess Bay off of Staten Island to other parts of Reach Channel, then finally Sandy Hook Bay. At almost every drop, we landed some flounder.

We were going to finish up the night fishing worms in the rips for stripers, but we were in a wind against tide situation, so instead of fishing the rips, we opted to continue landing plenty of fluke as we finished the night.

It was a great trip. Thanks to Captain Mike for putting everyone into such good fishing all day long.

Governor Martin O’Malley weighed in on the catch: “This record is evidence of the great fishing opportunities Maryland has to offer.”

We hear ya, governor; with the Chesapeake in your backyard, we agree wholeheartedly.

The cobia appeared in a chum slick intended for sharksat Great Gull Shoal. The captain of the charter boat was prepared for cobia and had a baited rod ready.

“The cobia eventually was brought into the boat and when it hit the certified scale at the Ocean City Fishing Center,” said Keith Lockwood, of DNR’s Fisheries Service.

The catch was verified by Fisheries biologist Steve Doctor and will be listed as the new state record for the Atlantic Division of the Maryland in the Maryland Sport fish Tournament records.

That one will feed a family of four

He said that they have been fishing depths of 70-100 feet, with a water temp of 71 degrees. They had rough conditions out front, so they fished the bay with Tom Wills, Vince and their group, along with Babe, and Eddie.  Most of the day, they had wind against tide. Still they caught a few fish even with the tough conditions. Once the tide went the other way the bite turned on for them. They put 15 keepers in the box with ton of other shorts. Most fish were around 19 inches. Gulp and meat were key.