Captain Monty Hawkins's voice rings out over the boat.

"All right folks, this looks like the place to be," he says. "Over they go."

And with that, 15 lines, 30 hooks and nearly five pounds of lead start their descent to the sea floor nearly 100 feet below the Morning Star, one of the best head boats in OC. The target is the black sea bass, a tasty fish that congregates around bottom structure like shipwrecks and reefs. Captain Monty is hoping to scratch up some summer flounder as well.

The day starts at 6:30 a.m. at the Ocean City Fishing Center. We load 15 people on board, along with two mates and the captain. When we are all settled, the boat glides out of the marina and sets out for the Ocean City inlet. Visibility is low, as the winds blow smoke from the wildfires burning in Virginia and North Carolina. A stench like burning plastic clogs the air.

We steam for more than two hours, trying to reach an artificial reef somewhere southeast of OC. Captain Monty is involved with the Ocean City Reef Foundation, a charitable organization that seeks to build sustainable fish habitat close to shore. He swears by the endeavor's successes, but acknowledges that some claim he's just drawing the fish to one location rather than promoting growth. We're going to look for fish on one of the reefs created by the foundation.

When we reach the reef, the captain calls down to the mate to set the anchor. We drop our lines and immediately start catching sea bass. Most are undersized, as they have to be 12 inches long to keep them. Fish come over the rail, hit the measuring stick and go back over. We're not in the right spot.

The captain asks the mate to change the length of the anchor rope. We're on a slightly different spot now. Lines go back over.

A few more fish come up, with a few keepers. I catch one for dinner. We have a limit of 25 keepers per person.

I land a few more undersized fish that go back to grow and be caught another day. Then I caught something else: seasickness. It has plagued me for years. I thought I would avoid this devil on this trip. I had the prescription Scopolamine patch behind my ear since the night before. No luck. I tried calming my stomach with saltine crackers and ginger ale. No luck.

I get sick every time I step on a boat, but fishing is too important to let that get me down. After I clean myself up, I'm back to fishing. More short ones. The woman next to me catches a decent flounder. Then I get sick again. And again. The man on the other side of me moves down a few feet. I shrug it off and try to fish some more. I'm reeling up what feels like a nice fish when the sickness returns again. I ask the mate to finish landing my fish, which turns out to be about 6-inches long.

The day drags on and I am miserable. We move around, with Captain Monty working extremely hard to find us some good-sized fish. Around 1:30 p.m., we call it quits. The boat usually leaves at 7 a.m. and returns at 3 p.m., but today we will return about an hour later than usual. No one caught their limit, and the mates are exhausted from trying everything possible to scratch up some fish for the fares on board.

The problem with fishing is that sometimes it's only fishing, with very little catching going on. On that trip, I was too busy settling my stomach to catch much. Of course, I was the only one on the boat to get sick, but that didn't stop me from trying.

Captain Monty runs the best boat in town, and on top of that, he's a class act. He is known for finding reefs that hold fish, and catching a few before moving on. This enrages some of his customers, who can't understand why the boat is sailing away from a spot that's producing fish. The captain does this to preserve the integrity of the reef and the habitat it provides. If you catch every fish in one day, what's going to be there next time?

The best part about the Morning Star is that it is limited to 25 people per trip. This makes it cost a little more than the other head boats in Ocean City, but it's worth every penny. You get assigned a spot on the rail, which really helps keep tangles to a minimum.

We didn't catch too much, and the mates said it was one of the worst days of the year, but it was still an exciting trip. So what if I got seasick? I still had a great time and can't wait to go back out.

If you're not interested in a full day of sea bass fishing, check out the Ocean Princess, the Judith M, or the Angler (Talbot Street), all of which are half day trips. There are a number of boats that offer short trips in the bays behind Assateague and Ocean City, including the Pony Island Express, the Happy Hooker, the Bay Bee and the Tortuga.