FISHING NEWS

Big black drum have come on strong joining bull reds as targets for anglers who want to tangle with jumbo-sized fish. Large blacks are being caught on the seaside in the Great Machipongo Inlet. Inside the bay, the bite has turned on in the buoy 13 and buoy 16 areas. Sea clams and chowder clams are the top baits. The big reds are being caught along the Eastern Shore surf along Fisherman's and Smith Islands and in the 9-Foot-Shoal area. The flounder bite has been spotty with the some nice catches coming from Back River Reef. Fishermen are awaiting the arrival of cobia and spadefish. The first cobia have been caught out of Hatteras. We should have some of both species here within a couple of weeks. Water temperatures are high enough now. Speckled trout are being caught in the Mobjack Bay area, in the inshore waters of the Eastern Shore, both bayside and seaside, on Poquoson Flats and in Back River. Some nice puppy drum action can be found on Poquoson Flats. The spring trophy striped bass season is open and some keeper-sized fish are available along the CBBT. Offshore boats out of the Outer Banks are having good luck with dolphin, tuna, wahoo, and some billfish. Out of Virginia, offshore fishing consists of bottom fishing for sea bass, tilefish, and grouper. We should see some pelagic action later this month.

Initial results are in for the satellite pop-up tag striped bass pilot study. Information is being collected from eight tags. Two tags have not reported. All eight of the reported fish survived the catch and release experience. Half of these fish were caught on circle hooks, half on J-hooks. Two of the J-hook fish were hooked deep. It did not matter, they all survived. These fish were handled in a normal manner. They were netted, measured, held up for photographs and released with a tag. These large striped bass caught in cold, salty water seem to be very hardy animals. Of course, more fish need to be tagged for statistically validity. Detailed information on the minute by minute activities of these fish is being retrieved from these tags.

VIMS is interested in conducting further studies of large speckled trout (32 inches and above), to determine age and growth rates of Virginia speckled trout versus other states (Texas/Fla etc). To this point, they have seen some significant findings between our specks and other states' specks, but need a larger sample to further their conclusions. VIMS has been using citation data to locate anglers who caught these trophy sized speckled trout, in hopes of obtaining the carcass for examination. John Lucy from the Va Game Fish Tagging Program & VIMS would like anglers to contact him directly at (804) 815-6231 mailto:lucy@vims.eduif anyone catches a large 32"+ speckled trout and doesn't mind VIMS extracting the otilith bone after the fish is molded (for taxidermy) or after the fish is cleaned. Scientists from VIMS will study the otilith, which is a small bone found in the skull whose size increases with the age of the fish, to augment their research. If you know an angler who catches or who has caught a 32"+ speckled trout, and either they or their taxidermist has the fish (in a cooler, frozen), please contact John Lucy immediately! Barclay Shepard’s 12lb 1oz 35 1/4" speckled trout from 2 years ago was aged and it is officially the oldest speckled trout recorded in Chesapeake Bay waters. The fish was 12 years old (using the Otilith) and female. Apparently there was a 12 year old fish recorded in Texas a while back and a 15 year old fish reported in Florida, but the results cannot be confirmed due to using scales versus Otiliths.

The weekend of May 17 will be a busy one. The Black Drum World Championship will be held May 16-18. For details, visit:  http://www.esvachamber.org/festivals/drumfish/ . The Hunt for Hard Heads club challenge is on May 17 and the Wilcox Bait and Tackle Triple Threat Tournament starts on May 17. For more info visit: http://www.pswsfa.com/tournaments.htm .

May 5, Tricia and I ran out in the afternoon to buoy 13. I know they have been catching some nice blacks inside the Great Machipongo Inlet but I did not think that we would need to run that far. In short order, Tricia was hooked up to our first black drum. We ended up catching and releasing 3 and came in early. We were using chowder clams for bait. Our largest was 50 inches long. There were a few other boats out there but none were close enough to see if anyone else was catching.

May 5, Kayak Kevin fished Fisherman's Island Inlet and caught two red drum up to 47 inches long.

May 5, Capt. Jim Brincefield took a party offshore. They caught some sea bass, his first ever golden tilefish and a bunch of blackbelly rosefish. www.captjim.com

May 4, I went after red drum with Charles Southall. Also fishing with us was David Brabrand and Wes Blow. We fished Fisherman's Island Inlet. We only caught a single smooth dogfish. Well, VIMS wanted one so they got it. Ric Burnley was near us in his motor boat. They caught 3 reds and his kayak buddies paddling around also caught a couple of big reds. We saw a small black caught and that was as close as it got for us. It was a pretty day and it was the first time any of us had fished with Wes. I had been wanting to. The guy is a fish catching machine. He is relatively new to our fishing club and his detailed reports over the past couple of years have been great. He will target some new fish for him, write about everything that goes wrong, but after a couple of trips he catches some beast of a fish. He has made some amazing catches. Not on this trip but it was good to finally get to fish with him.

May 3, Ric Burnley fished Fisherman's Island. They had 4 drum bites and landed two big red drum.

April 27, I went fishing with Chris and Dave Boyce. We did some wreck hopping in the Triangle Reef area. We caught 19 tautog up to 21 inches long.

April 26, Danny Forehand took his new Albemarle out for its maiden fishing trip. They hit Fisherman's Island and caught a 47-inch red drum which was released for the boat's first citation.

April 26, Ric Burnley and his kayak krazy buddies fished Fisherman's Island Inlet. They all managed to catch at least one trophy red drum.

April 26, Charles Southall fished for tautog and they caught a limit of fish up to 6 pounds. They also caught a 15 pound black drum on the wreck. They then went over to Fisherman's Island where they caught and released a 47-inch red drum.

April 26, Mike Avery did some offshore bottom fishing. They caught 4 golden tilefish up to 35 pounds, 4 wreckfish, some sea bass, blackbelly rosefish, and a collection of other bottom fish.

April 25, Tricia Neill ran to the mouth of the Poquoson River and bottom fished for an hour. Using bloodworm, she caught a dozen spot and croaker. She also caught a 22-inch flounder on a little piece of bloodworm.

April 24, Capt. Brincefield ran one of his offshore trips. They caught 158 keeper sea bass including some over 5 pounds, 31 blueline tilefish up to 9 pounds, and a few bluefish including a 37.75 inch fish released for a citation. www.captjim.com

April 23, Steve Mattson hit the CBBT for some catch and release striped bass action. He was not disappointed. In 4 hours of fishing the light line near the 1st island, he caught 21 stripers up to 41 inches long. Bluefish in the 20-22 inch range also joined the party.

April 20, David Brabrand fished out of Hatteras. They caught 10 yellowfin tuna and two wahoo.

April 20, we ran offshore and did a little bottom fishing. I guess with all of the wind, these fish had not been touched in a while because the fishing was ridiculous. We quickly caught our 6 person grouper limit. Bob Manus caught a 53 pound 4 ounce snowy grouper. Steve Martin caught a 30 pound snowy and the rest of the limit were wreck fish. We then moved onto blueline tilefish and caught our 42 fish limit. It still was not lunchtime yet so we moved in a bit and hit a couple of sea bass spots and they were loaded up. We had our limit of sea bass in short order and came in early. This was a good thing because it took hours to clean all of those fish. Bernie Sparrer caught our largest sea bass at 5 pounds 14 ounces. We also caught a number of bluefish. We caught very few dogfish though Bob did manage to catch one which had a tag in it.

April 20, a group of anglers went out on the Rudee Angler after grouper. Club members Wes Blow and Mike Avery each caught big snowy grouper. The boat caught a good number of grouper to 45 pounds and some large blueline tilefish.

April 19, we did some tautog fishing in the Triangle Reef Area. We brought back a limit of 12 big tautog and released a few others. We also brought back a couple of nice sea bass. Danny Forehand weighed in a 14.5 pound fish that when caught, had one of my hooks in it from a rig I had lost earlier. Matt Rinck caught one even larger. His 18 pound 5 ounce fish is currently the largest tautog weighed in so far this year.

April 19, Darren Foster did some offshore bottom fishing and loaded up the boat with jumbo sea bass. They also caught 5 golden tilefish up to 45 pounds.

April 19, Craige Stallings fished offshore off of Virginia. They caught about 60 pounds of sea bass and 100 pounds of blueline tilefish.

April 18-19, Mike Avery spent the night offshore. They had a couple of bites that were probably swordfish but they did not catch them. In the morning, they did some deep dropping and caught a bunch of blackbelly rosefish. They also caught 3 golden tilefish to 30 pounds. Other species caught during the trip include: sea bass, bluefish, blue shark, hake, blueline tilefish, and some kind of snapper.

April 13, After weeks of windy weather, we finally got a calm window on a weekend. We had a good day on some of the inshore wrecks in the Triangle Reef area. We caught 30 nice tautog, some sea bass and a big hake. No monster tog but no little ones either. Ric Burnley caught our three biggest tog. One was almost 10 pounds and the two others were almost 9 pounds. Most of the fish were in the 17 inch range. We kept a few sea bass and Ric also caught a 10-pound hake. We were using green and blue crabs and some clam for bait. We kept a 16 tog limit and tagged the rest.

April 13, Chris Boyce fished the CBBT for tautog. They caught a limit of 20 tautog.

April 13, Darren Foster fished the CBBT area for tautog. They caught about 80 togs. They were biting at all stages of the tide.

April 11, Steve Martin fished at 36A. They caught 3 keeper flounder to 23 inches long and some throw backs.

April 10, Mike Avery fished the 36A area. They managed to catch 2 nice keeper flounder.

Contact Ken Neill with fishing news.

E-mail Ken Neill with fishing news.

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