The Day of the Zulu Jig at Ocean City, MD

By Tim Sherman

Ocean City Maryland

At right: Tim Sherman shows one of many stripers that he caught on the heavy Zulu Jig.

As avid fishermen, we have a few annual trips to which we look forward. For some folks it’s the redfish and speckled trout in Florida or, maybe, casting a fly for trout in the great rivers out west. I enjoy my smallmouth bass float trips; but there is

one outing that, at its mere mention, gets me amped up. It’s not anything exotic like bonefish in Belize or sailfish in the Bahamas. My yearly journey to Ocean City, Maryland to battle bluefish and stripers is highly anticipated. Tom Gittins and I have enlisted the services of Captain Mark Sampson of Fish Finder Adventures for the last five years and have yet to be disappointed.

Tom and I work together and our email banter touched on the stripers and bluefish. Yet we were also pondering other species. In mid- to late September there is a good chance to catch a keeper (17 1/2-inches) flounder, and there is a fair chance of catching redfish and speckled trout. We discussed making fewer casts with topwater and subsurface hard baits to fish with jigs to appeal to multiple species when fished along the bottom.

We met Captain Mark at the Ocean City Fishing Center at 6:30 AM. As we puttered out of the marina, our first stop was along the riprap bank that guarded luxury condos to the south of the marina’s harbor. We saw plenty of baitfish activity, but we didn’t get a strike. With the current flooding in through the inlet, Sampson fired up the outboard and motored us out to the east tip of the south jetty.

The bite was on from the first cast. A school of bluefish was feeding there and our slugfest began. Tom and I both cast topwater plugs, yet two factors made us change our lures. One — bluefish and treble hooks can be very precarious when trying to unhook them and two — the pesky seagulls would pick up the surface baits if the blues didn’t strike immediately.

The teeth of bluefish of any size make short work of a soft plastic bait. However, last year I found that Strike King’s Zulu and Z-Too soft jerkbaits stand up to the teeth mashing. I affectionately call them “stretchy baits” for their elasticity. I had a white Zulu tied on a second rod and thought it matched the baitfish fairly well. I didn’t get bites at first; but when I cranked the lure quickly with the intent of making another cast, that’s when the first strike came. I’m no rocket scientist, but if the fleeing-baitfish presentation was what they wanted, that’s what they would get … for the next hour from both Tom and me.

When the action slowed, Captain Mark guided us back westerly along the jetty. I tried several lures and Tom probed along the bottom with the jig. I connected with another bluefish by working a Z-Too with a DOA Chug Head — a soft plastic cup-faced head that turns a soft plastic bait into a popper. Our bantering actually came to light. Though the fish were undersize, Tom caught and released a flounder and a redfish.

Our favorite part of the trip is casting to the Route 50 bridge pilings. When we arrived, the incoming current was screaming past the bridge. Sampson anchored up current and used the bow mounted trolling motor to work us across the face of the bridge. Tom struck first with a striper that attacked a Bomber jerkbait. I had two bites in a row that fought so hard in the current that they bent the treble hooks on my Bomber. To remedy this, I tied on a 1-ounce jig head tipped with a chartreuse Zulu. Fishing it against the current, I worked it slowly between the bridge pilings. Stripers responded with thunderous jolts. Tom saw my results and also got in on the Zulu bite.

The bite continued as Captain Mark repositioned several times working us east to west. A mix of stripers and bluefish stuck the soft plastic bait. When the bite slowed, Tom and I would sling the Bomber to keep the action going. As we approached the western end, the current and the bite waned. Tom began to experiment and was justly rewarded with a 20-inch flounder that ended the day’s catch.

Every year our O.C. odyssey is a pleasure. Tom and I have always had constant action when fishing with Captain Mark Sampson. The patterns vary from year to year, but the jetty and, especially, the bridge have been very good to us. This year our success was greatly due to the many applications of the stretchy baits – the Strike King Zulu.