FISHING NEWS

Often, a tropical system will really turn on the billfish bite. The billfish bite cannot get any better can it? Hopefully, Earl will not mess things up because we have an epic bite going on. The latest hot area has been around the Washington Canyon where boats were releasing 20 to over 50 white marlin in a single day. Billfish action has been good from the Washington on down to the Triple 0s area. There are plenty of dolphin out there and wahoo catches are increasing. Tuna fishing has been tough all summer. Sea bass action is very good at the Triangle Wrecks. Amberjack are still hanging out at the southern towers. Amberjack and jack crevalle can be found at the Chesapeake Light Tower and over nearby wrecks. There are some impressive barracuda in this same area. Cobia fishing remains very good along the oceanfront and around the mouth of the bay. Sight-casters are finding fish on the buoys and podding up out in open water. Sheepshead action has been pretty good at the CBBT. Flounder fishing has been very good. Earl will be a big factor with the flounder bite. If the bay gets stirred up, the bite will pretty much shut down until things clear up a little. Spanish mackerel are available in the lower bay. Cape Henry will be good this month. It is September which means that it is time to start getting serious about fishing for spot.

Aug. 30, the marlin bite is red hot so we went fishing for baby tuna on. This is something we do every year. We go searching for young of the year bluefin tuna for the scientific community. We do not find them every year. It is a big ocean and we are just one little boat looking for them. This year is a bit more important. The fish we are looking for are fish which were spawned in the Gulf of Mexico this spring. That is where out western Atlantic stock comes from. Well, with that little oil spill and all of the chemical dispersants used, there was a real concern that we may have lost an entire year-class of bluefin tuna. Usually, I get a good number of volunteers for these trips. Being a Monday and the schoolteachers of my crew were back at work, a lot of my regulars could not make it. Dr. John Graves and myself can really handle just the little bluefin, it is all of the bycatch that you really need help with. We found a good group who could get off work to go: JT Hale, Blake Hayden, Steve Martin, and Brandon Honeycutt. We started inshore in the Cigar area. We pulled Spanish mackerel stuff off of the transome and normal offshore stuff off of the riggers. I think the total was 12 different species of fish caught. The short of it is, we found baby bluefin so we did not lose this year's class of bluefin tuna which is really good news. We did not catch a lot and after awhile, John asked if I wanted to run and try somewhere else. I thought that the Washington Canyon sounded pretty good since the guys up there were bailing marlin. It was a bit far so we just headed east. A lot of life was in 500 fathoms. We caught a lot of dolphin, jumped off a white marlin, and then hooked up a 300-pound blue marlin on a TLD 30. Steve Martin fought the fish. The fish put a hurting on him but he got his first blue marlin release (Steve said that it would be his last blue marlin release). We also caught little blackfin tuna and a few baby bluefin out there in the deep. They seem to be scattered over a wide area. I expect that we will do a couple more of these baby bluefin trips this year but while we were doing this, one of the boats to our north, released over 50 white marlin.

Aug. 29, Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, went sight fishing for cobia along the ocean front. When I spoke to him, his charter was on their 4th cobia.

Aug. 29, Wes Blow did some chumming inside the bay. He waded through a lot of sharks in order to catch a nice cobia.

Aug. 29, Capt. Blake Hayden and the Burnley brothers visited the Eastern Shore to fish for tarpon. They saw a bunch of them but did not hook up with any.

Aug. 29, we ran out of Virginia Beach and looked for cobia on Sunday. We did not go far. We fished from the beach on out to the CB buoy line. We had plenty of company doing the same thing. We found cobia on buoys and out in the open, around the schools of baitfish which were everywhere. It was a very short trip. We caught 4 cobia. We pulled one off, twice. Thought we had him but the hook pulled, cranking it back with the eel still on the hook, the cobia did not like the eel getting away, and it started all over again. This time the cobia got the eel. We broke two fish off. One was on a buoy, which happens. The other was out in the open. Our young angler got a little anxious when the fish was almost in gaff range. He clamped down on the reel spool in order to horse that fish the last foot and the line popped. We call that a teachable moment. His more experienced father was fighting another fish at the same time. He calmly let the drag do its job and his fish was successfully netted while he explained proper boat-side fighting techniques to his son. When Hunter broke his fish off, it did not leave. It went right to the one that Charles was fighting and stayed with it until we netted Charles' fish. It had no interest in eating again. Steve Martin released a 50-inch fish for his first cobia citation. Our largest fish was 54 inches long. We went in early to get things ready for an offshore trip for the next day.

Aug. 28, Capt. Jorj Head did some sight fishing for cobia. They found the fish at Cape Henry. His charter hooked 12 cobia, landing 7.

Aug. 28, Charles Southall and Gabe Sava fished for cobia. Charles caught their one fish. It was a 53-inch cobia that he released for a citation.

Aug. 23, Ken Braddy went sight fishing for cobia with Zach Hoffman.They caught 10 nice cobia. Ken caught the largest at 92.5 pounds. This is large enough to beat his own IGFA Junior World Record. This will be Ken's third world record. Rather impressive.

Aug. 22, we went billfishing. I went to get some ice and there was the Gee Daddy tied up with a rigger full of flags. We were just getting started and those guys were still up celebrating their big tournament win. I went over and congratulated them and asked where I should go. The guy told me to go to the 150 in 50 fathoms. Thanks Gee Daddy! From the 160 to the 140 in 50 to 70 fathoms, we saw marlin everywhere. Free jumpers, balling bait, cutters, at one time I had ten fish tailing on one side of my boat. I looked to the other side and there were another ten. I have no idea how many fish came in the spread. At first I thought we were still tarpon fishing. We had a couple of one jumps and gone. Then we pulled one after a good fight. We plain missed 3 more. We finally caught our 7th bite. A lot of the fish were coming in and tapping a bait and leaving. We would drop back and nothing. The bait would look untouched. We still had plenty of others that did eat. We ended up catching 4 white marlin and a spearfish. We should have caught 15. I am sure one of the good charter boats would have had a 20 fish day there yesterday. Billfishing is very good right now.

Aug. 22, Larry Lusk ran offshore and fished the Fingers/Wayne's World area. They found dolphin and a nice wahoo.

Aug. 22, report from Chris Boyce: Fished for flounder with Capt. Craig Paige and dad. Flounder bite was wide open at the 2nd island tube. Mostly guys jigging but it was one of the best flounder fishing days I have seen in a while. Nothing real big but a lot of fish and everybody was catching. We caught a limit up to 6lbs 7oz. Dad dropped his rod and reel over board again and it was caught about 20 minutes later by a guy jigging. This is the same rod and reel that went into the water a few years ago and then was caught back with a citation flounder on it. A lot of triggerfish around the pilings at the bridge.

Aug. 21, Danny Forehand fished the Norfolk Canyon area. They missed a number of white marlin. They caught some dolphin and triggerfish. They then did some bottom fishing and caught blueline tilefish to 11.5 pounds and some sea bass.

Aug. 21, Rick Wineman fished the Norfolk Canyon. They caught some triggerfish and jacks off of the buoys. They caught some dolphin, cranked up a few blueline tilefish, and went 1 for 3 on white marlin.

Aug. 21, Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, took a charter out after cobia. They caught 17 cobia including 5 release citations.

Aug. 21, Brandon Bartlett fished in the VBBT. They saw a number of fish but only managed to catch a spearfish right before lines in.

Aug. 21, we met with Capt. Blake Hayden at the base of the CBBT. Also waiting there was Carl Herring. They were fishing the club challenge. While he was waiting for his crew member, Carl told us of his Eastern Shore tarpon catches. I think that guy has done it all. Blake said that if the wind was blowing one way, we would go back to where we were or if it was blowing another way, he had another spot. When we got there, the wind was not blowing at all. We went back to the same spot. We saw even more tarpon rolling than the day before but did not have any tarpon hook-ups. We did catch some impressive southern stingrays though. I snagged Charles' hook as I was bringing my bait in to check it. I told him that I had him and he said that I did not. Sure enough, I had his rig from the day before: hook, leader, sinker, shock leader, and about 30 feet of main line. It looked like a sharp cut. I don't think this fishing is for everyone but we had a blast. Capt. Blake was a lot of fun and we have already booked him for another trip.

Aug. 20, we ran to the Eastern Shore to fish for tarpon with Capt. Blake Hayden. We saw tarpon rolling right away. I have caught tarpon in the 100-pound class in Florida. These were bigger. Different spots are favored for different tides, wind direction, and time of day, and when in the season it is. Stuff you could figure out if you spent years over there. You spend most of your time catching sharks and rays. The fishing is really pretty easy, basically red drum fishing on the shoals. Early in the morning I hooked up and it was coming to me easy. I said shark. Then it swam past me and started to pull drag pretty good….ray. Then it turned back very swiftly and came up fast. Uh-oh, a big tarpon comes straight up right at the back of the boat. Blake estimated 150 pounds. It looked larger than that to me. The hook came flying out. When we looked at the circle hook, the point was rolled over. Later in the day, a tarpon rolled over where Charles had a bait on the bottom. The fish made a sharp u-turn and dove down fast and Charles' line started going sideways. He engaged the reel and the tarpon comes skying out of the water. It does a back flop and Charles' line breaks. It looked like the fish landed on it. We had a couple other hook-ups with fast drag pulls that came loose before we could see what they were. They felt tarponish. No photos of the tarpon even though Ric Burnley was along just to take photos. He did not have his camera in his hand for either jump. Things happened fast.

Aug. 20, Capt. Jorj Head went sight fishing for cobia. His charter caught 13 fish.

Aug. 20, Brandon Bartlett fished in the VBBT. They saw a few white marlin and caught a small blue marlin.

Aug. 18, I had some very good cobia reports from earlier in the week. We ran out to sight fish for them between the Baltimore Channel and York Spit. Conditions were bad. Cloudy with light rain. Our day was cut short when approaching thunderstorms sent us packing. Seeing the fish was very difficult. We still managed to see a few and caught a couple of nice fish. Wes Blow weighed the largest at 60 pounds 4 ounces. The other was maybe 40 pounds. We saw a very large fish that we did not get a cast on.

Aug. 17, Brandon Bartlett ran up in the bay to look for cobia. They caught 3 nice fish but pulled the hook on two very large fish.

Aug. 15-16, we headed offshore dark and early Sunday Morning. We got back Monday evening. We started out around the 100 fathom curve at the 41300. There was a pretty good marlin bite from the Norfolk Canyon to the Washington Canyon. The ladies billfish tournament was going on and that was where most of the boats were. Most had a good day. Capt. Steve Richardson, on the Backlash, had a Grand Slam of a blue marlin, 2 white marlin, and a spearfish. It sounded like everyone was seeing a good number of fish. We were not seeing any. We caught some dolphin while fishing our way north. In the afternoon, at the 41420, we found all kinds of stuff. Marlin were balling bait under working birds. Troll by and get whammed. I was sitting side-to, looking back when my teaser reel behind my head goes off. It got my teaser ballyhoo. Another got a flat line. A third went and hooked itself on a big bait. That was how it went. White marlin come in, we miss them, one hooks itself. Two of those we caught were on a pink/white Ilander/ballyhoo combination. Another teaser fish came in hot. I'm pulling the teaser in as fast as I can while yelling instructions to Wes Blow. We did not communicate very well. Wes reeled the flat line all the way to the boat. I told him to let it out some and that fish turned and ate Wes' bait right at the corner of the boat as he was putting it back in. We got that one. While that fish was jumping around, I hooked another on a long rigger. Since everyone else already had marlin, I went downstairs to fight that one. I just held the rod while we worked on the first fish. Maybe, I should have backed off the drag a bit but I did not think the circle hook would pull… it did. Out of all this action, we only caught 3 white marlin. I personally pulled off 2 after hookup and I don't know how many we missed. Before it got dark, we went to the Norfolk Canyon and made 4 drops. We caught 2 golden tilefish, 1 blueline tilefish, 1 snowy grouper (55 pounds), 1 sea bass, 1 blackbelly rosefish, and I caught a conger eel. It was my one catch of the whole trip. We drifted all night for swords and sharks. Our squid baits still looked brand new in the morning. There are some swords around. A good number of squid boats are out there working the 100 fathom area. One pulled up a big swordfish. They said the bill was 5 feet long. We expected to see a lot of life but only a very few squid came into our light. In the morning, it was back to the troll. The billfish action was down. I jumped off a white and we missed a couple of others. We caught some gaffer dolphin north of the Norfolk Canyon. Wes caught our largest at 21 pounds so nothing huge but some nice fish. We could hear the boats in the Mid-Atlantic 500 calling in their catches. John Graves and Guy Harvey are at that tournament. They are there every year and seem to have a very good time but manage to get some work done. All the marlin brought to the scales at Cape May and Ocean City are examined and samples collected. This DNA data base was part of the investigations that led to the classification of the roundscale spearfish. These samples show about 18% of the white marlin weighed in this tournament are actually spearfish. John sent me this report about the first day of this year's tournament: Ken: I hope you had a good overnight trip. Fishing was good here the first day of the tournament. Only 60+ of the 134 boats went out as the weather forecast only seems to get better through the week. About forty boats from here fished, but only two whites weighed in up here in Cape May, 63 and 69 lb. Jan (my colleague from VIMS) had a lot more action at Ocean City even though only 20+ boats went out. They weighed 11 "white marlin" of which 8 were roundscale spearfish. Top whites are 88 and 82, with three tied at 69. Most of the fishing lies ahead, but fortunately there are some big whites on the board, so that should limit little fish coming to the dock. No blues were weighed (400 lb minimum). Cheers, John p.s. Guy sends greetings to you and Tricia. He came here straight from Tropic Star Lodge.

Aug. 15, report from Rick Wineman: Ken, Dave Jenkins and I sight casted and ran the buoys for six hours with nothing, then we anchored up at York Spit, chummed for about two hours and killed 'em on the incoming tide. Final tally:54" Cobia Release Citation (tagged), 43" Cobia Release (tagged), 50" Cobia Release Citation (tagged), 64" / 71lb Cobia (gaffed) Weight Citation. We need to get back out there! Get Anet

Aug. 13-15, report from Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004: Had another pretty good weekend on the cobia. The water has gotten a lot dirtier and fishing was a lot tougher than earlier in the week. Fished Friday with Tom Czaplicki and his girlfriend Judi in some pretty bad rough and cloudy conditions. One of Tom's goals for the year is expert angler and he is sitting on three so far so our mission was to get him a citation. We caught about a 30 pounder of a buoy and then found a big school of bunkers with two fish on it. We hooked both and Tom fought the bigger fish while Judi fought the smaller. Both fish fought very hard in a hard running current and did not want to cooperate tangling lines several times during the fight. Judi was making sounds similar to Richie Moore on that big bluefin. After about at least 30 minutes and almost 3 miles from where we hooked up we boated both fish. Judi's was about 40 pounds and I think Tom's was 57 inches and probably would have made weight but we released it to make sure. Saturday fished with Sam Arnold and his buddy David from Harrisonburg. We found some decent water and fish off Newpoint and caught 11 up to about 60 pounds. We had three release citations up to 57 inches. Sunday fished with three generations of Phillips. Jack Phillips, his father Jack, and his son Josh. Fishing was tuff but we managed three fish between 30 and 45 pounds.

Aug. 11th, Capt. Jorj Head took a charter out after cobia. They had a great day, catching 15 cobia up to 62 inches long.

Aug. 10, Capt. Jorj Head had a cobia charter. Sight-fishing, they caught 14 cobia.

Aug. 8-9, our offshore trip last week ended up with a Grand Slam after Guy Harvey and John Graves identified one of our white marlin as a roundscale spearfish from the photographs. This past weekend, we did it again. It was the same type of slam. Roger Burnley caught his first blue marlin. Smaller than our last one but he caught it on a TLD 30. His 200-pound fish was about all he wanted on that rig. Wes Blow caught his first ever marlin (white). I caught our second spearfish in a week. It was my first. Having seen a couple now, there is no mistaking these things. Lit up marlin and sailfish are beautiful. These spearfish positively glow. The roundscale has very distinct scales. The close up of the spearfish head is actually of Hunter Southall’s fish from last weekend. It shows the scales well. We brought my fish into the boat. The anal vent of the spearfish is well forward of the anal fin. In the white marlin, the distance is about 2 inches. To round out the weekend, Richie Moore caught his first billfish (white). We all went swimming back at the dock. A Grand Slam was not enough for my crew. We stopped at the South Tower on the way in for some amberjack action. We did catch some small dolphin for dinner this week. Last week, we were just south of the Norfolk Canyon. This weekend, we were down at the Triple 0s. Both weekends, we were between 50 and 100 fathoms.  For some information about the roundscale spearfish: http://vbsf-hookedup.net/healthygrin/?page_id=310

Aug. 3, Dave Boyce fished for flounder with Capt. Craig Paige. His largest flounder was an 11 pound 7 ounce beast.

Aug. 2, we ran through a stiff NE breeze to get offshore. It was not a fun ride and I wondered if it was really worth it. I was answered soon after we put our lines out in 50 fathoms about 8 miles south of the Norfolk Canyon. We got covered up with white marlin. All of the short line bites were missed. The long riggers were upstairs with me. I hooked up two white marlin and passed the rods down. The crew never heard anything about that at all. Mike Hurst had never caught a billfish. He was on one fish. Hunter Southall fought the other. The hook pulled on Mike's fish before we could touch the leader. Hunter got his release. We just stayed in that area and worked between 50 and 100 fathoms. A nice blue marlin, about 400 pounds, came in and crashed the short rigger and hooked itself. We were running nakeds on circle hooks on the flat lines and long riggers with big baits and j-hooks on the short riggers. He hit the right bait. Bernie Sparrer caught that fish. I did not get any photos of that fish. I was too busy driving while that fish was going ape. It did not like that hook. The fish wore Bernie out pretty good. It was his second blue marlin. He caught his first out of Hatteras earlier this year. A bit later it was more white marlin. It was similar to the first bite. Fish on the big baits. Fish on the flat lines. I hooked one on a long rigger. I handed the rod down to Mike because he still had not caught his first billfish. We got the big stuff and the teasers up while circling Mike's fish. One flat line and a pitch bait were San Cochoed. John Graves had the one flat line not bit. There was a white just following that thing. It must of really liked looking at it. No matter what he did, the fish just kept following that bait. Finally the fish left and we went and got Mike's first billfish. The ride in was great. Back at the dock, Mike went swimming for his first billfish. Bernie went swimming because he had not gone swimming for his Hatteras blue. Hunter went swimming because they just wanted to throw him in. The reason given was that he went and caught a marlin while his dad was at work. Guy Harvey looked at the photos from the trip and identified Hunter's fish as a roundscale spearfish. John Graves agreed with him. I guess Hunter went swimming for his first spearfish. First Healthy Grin Slam. Capt. Steve Richardson, on the Backlash was fishing near us. He caught a blue marlin, two white marlin, and a 60 pound yellowfin tuna.

Aug 2, Brandon Bartlett had a half-day charter. They caught 70 bluefish and a Spanish mackerel.

Aug 1, Brandon Bartlett had two half-day charters. They caught close to 300 bluefish and a single Spanish mackerel.

Contact Ken Neill with fishing news.

E-mail Ken Neill with fishing news.

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