Snow at the end of March, winter just does not want to quit.
Spring is proceeding anyway. The first flounder were caught this past week.
David Freeman caught a 16.5 inch flatfish in the York River. Catches were made
out of Wachapreague this week. The first citation flounder was weighed in at
7.5 pounds but that doormat was caught while deep-dropping for blueline
tilefish. Another sign that spring is proceeding are the first catches of big
red drum on the beaches of Ocracoke and Hatteras. Typically, that means we can
expect the first big red drum in the Eastern Shore in a couple of weeks. Puppy
drum are already making a showing inside the inlets and in the shallows on the
western side of the bay. Some calm weather allowed boats to get out this past
week which resulted in some very impressive catches. Tautog fishing on the
coastal wrecks has been nothing short of excellent. Boats are catching as many as
fifteen citation-sized tog in a trip and multiple double-digit fish were
weighed in this week. The largest weighed 18 pounds 7 ounces and that same boat
weighed in another fish at 17 pounds 11 ounces! Tautog fishing has been slow
inside the bay. That should pick up over the next week as winter finally is out
of here and warmer temperatures are forecast. Boats running out of Oregon Inlet
continue to experience impressive bluefin tuna action. Some Virginia boats have
made the run south to get in on the action. There is a wide range of bluefin
being caught from around 100 pounds on up to over 600 pounds. In addition to
the bluefin tuna, there are some bigeye, yellowfin, wahoo, and even a few blue
marlin being encountered.
March 23, Capt. Rick Wineman ran his boat out of Oregon
Inlet for bluefin tuna. They soon had their daily “under” fish in the boat, a
58-inch fish. They then proceeded to do battle with a much larger fish. They
landed their one “over” for the year, an 87-inch fish that weighed in at 400
pounds. They pulled the hooks on two other large bluefin tuna.
March 23, Brandon Bartlett fished for tautog in the Triangle
Wrecks area. They caught fish until they ran out of bait. They caught 3 large
enough for citations up to 12.5 pounds.
March 23, we ran out to the Triangle Wrecks for tautog again.
We caught 43 tog before we ran out of bait. Our largest fish was 23 inches long
(tagged and released). We caught 10 fish that already had tags. One of the tags
was green as opposed to the normal orange tags of the VGFTP. It was one of
their tags. We lost one big fish. There were some nice tog caught by some of
the other boats out there. No lobster this time.
March 20 and 23, Bill Pappas, Jr. experienced some terrific tautog
action on one of the coastal wrecks. For the two days, they weighed in monster
tautog weighing: 11-5, 12-11, 12-13, 15-9, 17-11, and 18-7!
March 20, Wes Blow fished one of the ocean wrecks for
tautog. They had a great day catching 26 tog. They kept their 6-fish, 2-person
limit. Four of those fish weighed for citations up to 10.5 pounds. A fifth fish
was just 2 ounces shy of nine pounds. Their runt of the limit was about 22
inches long.
March 17, Bernie Sparrer fished out of Oregon Inlet. They
hooked 8 bluefin tuna, catching 4. They released 3. The one that they kept was
72 inches and weighed 197 pounds.
March 15, we ran out and fished several wrecks for tautog.
The bite was a lot better than last week but still not as good as in the weeks
prior. We caught 23 tautog and I caught my second lobster of the year. Never
caught one in all the years of tog fishing, now I've caught 2. It was pretty
out there in the morning, a bit breezy in the afternoon.
March 10, our only excitement of the day was getting out of
the inlet in the pre-dawn hours. Surfers had a good morning. We could hear the
surf crashing from the slip. Wes and Charles drove to the inlet to see how bad
it was. They said it was big. Charles said that it probably would not kill us.
It was impressive with the waves rolling over the jetties but once we got out
there, it was fine. We fished the Morgan, Doxie Girl, and Birch Lake. Big
swells, dirty water, about 4 degrees colder than water temps. last week. Not a
single bite.
March 2, Bernie Sparrer ran out of Oregon Inlet to try and
catch the big bluefin tuna that are roaming around out there. They did not have
a bite all day.
March 2, we ran back out after tautog. It was cold and the a
bit rough. The fishing seemed slower than our last few trips but at the end of
the day, we had caught 29 tautog. We caught 8 tautog with tags in them,
multiple different series of tags. 7 of the fish were released with their tags.
We killed one, tag number: 133411. It turns out that I had tagged this fish
April 2008. It was 17 inches then. It had grown to 25 inches, 11 pounds 8
ounces. The fish was on the same wreck. That was our largest fish of the day.
It was caught on blue crab. We caught three tog large enough to qualify for
citations. Wes Blow caught a 25-inch tautog that weighed 10 pounds on the boat
scale. To the chagrin of some of the hungrier crew, Wes decided to tag and
release that fish. He said that he had already weighed in a larger tog this
year and that he had eaten tautog for lunch four times this past week. Wes had
an unusual catch when he managed to catch a nice tautog and a sea bass at the
same time, on a single-hook rig. Somehow, he managed to hook both fish with the
same hook. Hunter Southall caught a lost rockfish that thought it was a tautog.
He caught it on a piece of clam. The fish was released along with the other
by-catch of sea bass, dogfish and cunner. A hake was not as lucky and joined
the tautog in the cooler.
Feb. 27, Mac McCormick and Bill Bradley fished the Elizabeth
River. They caught and released speckled trout up to 24 inches long.
Feb. 24, we ran out after tautog. The ride out was fine but
by the time we reached the wreck, it was not pleasant out there. We started out
anchoring off the stern but by the time the second wave broke over the back of
the boat, none of us could feel our fingers much less a tog bite. We
transferred the anchor to the bow, making it at least fishable. We were no
longer over the right spot but there was no way we were going to try and
re-anchor. We had some clams and shrimp for bait. The tautog seemed to like
both. We caught 23 tog up to 13 pounds before we ran out of bait. We also
caught numerous small sea bass, some cunner, and a number of dogfish. Two of
the tog we caught had tags in them. One was from the same series of tags that I
am using now so that is one we had tagged over the past two weeks. The other
fish had an older tag. It started out miserable but it turned out to be a
productive trip.
Feb. 17, Wes Blow’s cold and windy speckled trout report: I
had Amy along with Beth and Kevin fishing with me today. It started out with it
taking me an hour to get the ice off the boat so we could go. I ended up having
to break out my power washer to get the ice off the deck. With the temps and
wind I planned a short day during the time I thought it would be best after
fishing this past Wednesday all day and only having a short window of catching
more than a couple dozen fish. It did not work out like I had hoped. Anchor
lines were frozen, we had ice on the deck and the wind pulled the anchor several
times until I used my normal anchor with 18 feet of heavy chain. We only caught
2 fish up to 22 inches in the 3 hours we were out with Beth and Kevin catching
both of the fish. We did see an Osprey several times so hopefully spring is close,
with all the many fishing opportunities it brings.
Feb. 15, we went back out after tautog. It was gorgeous out
there. We fished four different wrecks and caught some fish on each of them. On
the first wreck of the morning, I was bringing up what I thought was a piece of
the wreck. It turned out to be a lobster hanging onto my hook with its big
claw. It had no intention of letting that food get away and held on until I
swung it into the boat. It was about 4 pounds. We caught a total of 25 tautog
up to 10 pounds. We also caught a lot of small sea bass to about 15 inches
long.
Feb. 13, Wes Blow fished the Elizabeth River. They caught 28
speckled trout up to 25.25 inches long.
Feb. 10, we ran out to the Triangle Wrecks to try for
tautog. The bite was pretty good in the morning, when it was rough and cold. It
was really slow in the afternoon, when it was calm and the sun was out. We
caught 18 tautog with most being in the 18-20 inch range. The largest was a
24-inch fish caught by Chris Boyce. We caught two 19-inch fish that already had
tags in them. The one caught by Wes Blow was blind in its left eye. Other than
that, it seemed fat and healthy. Both of the tagged fish appear to have been
tagged close together by their tag numbers being close in the same series of
tags: 227024 and 227033. Both of these fish were re-released with their tags in
place. It turns out that we tagged both of these fish in Jan/Feb 2010 on the
same wreck. They were 14-inch fish then.
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