Morning Star Fishing

Morning Star Fishing Join Captain Monty Hawkins aboard The Party Boat that Fishes Like a Private Charter! Call To Book yo And more room means fewer tangles and more fun!

That's right--because the Morning Star "sells out" at 18 anglers per trip there's plenty of room at the rail for all anglers!

Sea Bass and (kazillions of short) Flounder - 9/18/26 Left the dock knowing Saturday would be another loss. Sure looked ...
09/18/2026

Sea Bass and (kazillions of short) Flounder - 9/18/26

Left the dock knowing Saturday would be another loss. Sure looked OK for today though. Had every intention of whacking em (but I suppose I always do.) Enjoyed a short run off to where I hope partyboats can one day enjoy banner sea bass fishing again. Holly and Jigmaster Tom gave today's reef block unit a hearty shove. It is now helping to fill a small gap between a barge and tug; furthering the connection between the two pieces biologicaly.
Have done just that many times. Sure seems to work.
And then paddling off again - now with trolling lines astern. Rats. No joy.
First drop saw a mix of keeper sea bass and throwback flounder - man there's a lot of small fluke. I suppose that's good for our future. Makes a pain in the neck for now.
Calling for light SW, the wind came around NW then N then NNE. At least it stayed light.
Derned if I understand it. After the wind switched NNE we drifted over, & then anchored over, sea bass; even over really good marks, but they were quit.
WTHeck..
Thank goodness fluke weren't. Amid many throwbacks (that I hope portend well for next year) we had some keeper fluke in the boat when Donny noticed a rod bowed up good.
Standing by with a net, up comes a double of barely short flounder. Talk about a heart breaker..
Finally, with 30 feet of cbass on my screens and yet another shift in current, we had a few more keeper sea bass come over the rail.
Dave took everyone's cbass pool money. John won the tshirt for largest flounder and won the 50/50 reef raffle--on his birthday.
Nice..

A few more weeks? Just after this NEster coming? The fall bite is usually the best of it for numbers.

I am concerned with our sea bass decline I forecast in 2015/16. It's still a viable fishery ..but on the slide down - especially where there's Only recreational pressure. Sea bass behavior on their spawning sites has never been studied. Promise - the bigger our size limit, the fewer age one fish are allowed to recruit.
There was an announcement today that might finally cure fisheries science of its bad recreational catch data (MRIP) induced malaise..
Man I hope so.

Fuel is now almost $7 a gallon....
Ouch.
Darkest before dawn!
Cheers All,
Monty

Nice (and correct!) forecast, super light rail; looked fwd to fishing myself some this day. Ambled on off a good ways - ...
09/18/2026

Nice (and correct!) forecast, super light rail; looked fwd to fishing myself some this day. Ambled on off a good ways - at $6.04 a gal for diesel 😞
Linda & Karen deployed today's reef unit on a tiny reef, one that will continue to grow.
Quite a few of those reefs now. Reckon I'll keep adding to em.
After blocks we put a few trolling lines out hoping to catch some false albacore for fresh bait.
Naww.. That didn't happen.
Kept paddling.
At lines in I saw screen after screen of sea bass. �Anglers caught an incredible number of short flounder and few sea bass. Able to sneak a drop & truly wanting sea bass for sashimi, I dropped clam down.and also caught short flounder.
In my 'acorns before oaks' way of thinking, next year should treat us pretty well on fluke.
Lots of bites - not a banner day. Someone focused on cbass would likely have done well, but flat-fish fever rules!
Reggie caught the sea bass pool fish. Linda, keeping her streak alive, boxed the day's biggest fluke.
Shelly and I did have sea bass sashimi tonight, bout it was a struggle. Don't guess they were too upset about it; had to force mates Donny and Kadin to catch em as I worked the helm on some long drifts.
Looks like a genuine NEaster next week.
Oh Joy.
Cheers All,
Monty

09/16/2026

Found this snippet from our dive monitoring trip a few weeks back. Should soon have the good stuff - apparently video taken with an Imax camera is hard to edit for an iPhone!
Since last October we've deployed 2 steel boats, two barges (all loaded with concrete block) and, just in the last few months, 9 loads of approximately 550 blocks..
Building Reef!
Soon I'll put together the fall raffle. Need Raffle Prizes.
Most anything new or as new works.
Please Help..
Cheers!
Monty

[email protected]
ocreefs.org

Sea bass, flounder & mahi? Yes! But nothing easy about it.. 9/5/26Wasn't a stellar sunrise, but the forecast was spot on...
09/05/2026

Sea bass, flounder & mahi? Yes! But nothing easy about it.. 9/5/26

Wasn't a stellar sunrise, but the forecast was spot on. Today's light NE breeze reminiscent of New England; we sure didn't miss yesterday morning's mini butt-kicking in W 20+ one bit.
Lindsey and John sent today's blocks down atop a barge where they'll add excellent complexity to its flat deck. Fish already use it - we'll make room for more. In time the additional rugosity should help corals to gain a toehold. I'm expecting complete coverage by 2035.. (Not sure I'll see it though!)
That's the brass ring. When a reef is fully colonized by our temperate corals, that's the best we can offer. Future generations will see a lot more coral than we did - especially if oyster restoration is accelerated and ocean water made blue again.
Where I thought sure our corals were zooxanthellae driven (as in tropical regions where single celled algae cohabitat with many corals and turn sunlight into food.) Because I only see our corals where sunlight can strike, and because an upper NOAA habitat guy told me of sea whip in Australia that was discovered to have zoox; I thought sure our corals were symbiotically feeding on sunlight too.
But no. I had asked divers Nick and Travis to bring me up some sea whip samples to find out for good. Professor Noah Bressman put them under a microscope and found no zooxanthellae.
I couldn't fathom why then the sunlight limitation. I am still not positive, but I think sea whip has contracted inshore from where it flourished fifty years ago..
Professor Noah explained while they don't convert sunlight to food, their food web does need sunlight to thrive. I've boiled it down thusly - phytoplankton (microscopic plants/algae) need sunlight - zooplankton (microscopic/really small animals or even large marine fish etc but in earliest life stages) feed on phytoplankton - sea whip (our orange and sometimes purple soft coral that can resemble a grass-like meadow in large numbers) feed on zooplankton. Because sunlight drives the food web most needed, sea whip are found where there's light.
Is that all of it?
Probably not. Just what I have now..

With blocks long since by the stern rail, quite some time later we began fishing.
Though my anglers dropped into sea bass straight out of the gate; wasn't much to it save crickets.
Hmmm..
Just a while later nothing had changed so far as wind, water quality or current - yet somehow the pace of catching grew.
Folks getting used to the equipment and bite?
I suppose..
A small school of mahi found us and, to their misfortune, mistook the boat for a safe place to congregate. Mahi on a sea bass/fluke trip works.
The current came all the way around south before midday. For a few hours it turned into one of my toughest bites this year.except for young Mr Gavin who continued catching when no one else was. He landed three doubles of sea bass when there wasn't that many around the rest of the rail. We tried to cipher it - why his rig and no others? Sometimes the fishing is unknowable.
Thankfully the bite came around our favor again later - a little at least. Though I stayed into overtime, it didn't help everyone--certainly helped some.

Mahi trips Tues & Wed coming. Looks like we'll sneak them in before the wind - a wind that might churn the water column and lower the surface temp sending mahi scrambling offshore.
We'll see!

My new deckhand (and pure fishing machine) David (Cornflower to his many friends) needs to take time off to help his Dad while he has heart surgery soon.
I need another hand!
Email only at [email protected]
Cheers,
Monty

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