Fishing Reports

I can explain later about the title of this post, it has to do with the method of fishing. Stolen from Bonefish and Capt Ron P (below).

Well some days are just better than others, Vince called yesterday late and asked if I wanted to go fishing with him. Well that is a question that answers itself along the way and I didn’t let that lack of judgement affect my answer.

Looking at Tides for fish.com I told him we didn’t need to rush so we were scheduled to meet at my dock at 8:00. I took my truck to the bait store and got 5 gal of bunker and 6 six eels. Didn’t have any chum more on that later on to the fishing.

We got on the spot in our reliable area of Dameron Marsh around 9:15 and the tide was moving but really only a little bit. I cut up a bunch of the bunker just tossing it over at a steady rate. You could tell it was going down at about a 45 degree angle which meant movement but not heavy current. I made the comment to Vince that it was just starting to turn and to drink water now before we got busy. The first fish which turned out to be the 53 inch guy took the eel fairly slowly and my first thought was it was a skate. He stopped cold about 30 yards from the boat and he just sat. Sometimes patience does help bigtime. I told Vince it was probably a skate but I was going to slowly try to take it from him hoping it was a fish and if he thought it was getting away he may just take it hard. Well that did it, he took off like a bolt. I was still scared it was a skate until I saw him out of the water.

Vince was a nervous wreck with the net, he was so scared he was going to knock off the fish. We could tell it was a big fish. Once I finally got him to the boat Vince asked did I think he was ready because he was just hanging around at the back of the boat. I told him no but to put the net in the water but not to try to net him. Well when he saw that net the answer was a definite no, he was still 20 min from ready. He worked both sides of the boat but thankfully did not go to the anchor. Actually, he went on both sides multiple times, under the boat, the whole nine yards. Finally, he did tire and thank God because I sure was and Vince did a nice job on the net.

One really cool thing that we saw was that there were two little (and I mean keeper size but not the size of this guy) swimming along with this one while he was hooked. Vince asked did I want him to put out one of the rods to see if he could hang this one. I have heard this is true even if you could not see the others but with this one being so big I ASKED please don’t that we were going to have all the trouble we could handle getting this guy in. Good lesson though if you have one on put out another bait (hopefully further out) to see if you can hang another.

Fish number two was Vince’s turn, I did pick up the rod and handed it to Vince. He thought he had lost it and said we shouldn’t have switched but just like the other one he picked up steam pretty soon. Unlike mine this one swam straight for the boat. I had gotten one rod up but the other two he was just too quick and he hooked both. Thankfully he was the 43 ” one so I didn’t know whether to cut everything but the fish or net him. Finally, netting seemed a better approach so we got the second one in the boat.

Vince lost his mind, I think those were the two biggest fish he has had in his boat. I did too, we caught both fish and were in by 12:30. Another good day on the bay. The water, wind, temp, waves, everything was perfect.

Bang Bang came to came to me by way of the NNK anglers club. I can’t remember the person’s name giving the talk but the one thing I got out of the meeting (that changed the way I fish) is he suggested “chunking” up a bunker and just throwing it in the water. He used a hollow kids bat but I just threw out the chunks. Anyway that seems to work best. I first tried it with Ron. It worked well there, won’t do it another way. One change is I did not use any chum, glad not to, it is just mess in the boat.

I went out with Scott to do an exploratory venture to find where or if the Spanish Mackerel. It is often amazing to me that spanish are in fact different day to day and certainly year to year. Some years they tend to hug the coast in relatively shallow water and other years they are out in the deepest part of the bay. Day to day they will have a different color and can certainly be effected by the amount of sunshine, water color, etc.

We have gone out the last two Thursdays and in general we have not found them in numbers. First day we ended up with 4 and yesterday ended the day with 8. Adam was with us and caught the most. But as always it takes a boat to catch a fish and it is always easier with 3 onboard.

One highlight of the day was Sutton called his dad before he went to bed and just as he called we hung a fish. So Adam was able to facetime with Sutton to watch us catch the fish.

The wind was from the north (which is not my favorite by a long stretch) and we were 1 -2 foot for about half of the trip with the bay settling down nicely from about 6pm onward. Temps were perfect, had a glorious sunset and a full moon rise.

Forgot to take any pics so you will just have to trust me on this one. Plus it was dark when we got back so there.

Finally got out for a Cobia round, got packed up early, took off for the bait shop. Nothing quite has that early morning smell like a bait store. If you are prone to being sick on a boat this is not your kind of fishing. We got eels, had caught some spot the afternoon earlier in the week and for “chumming” we had whole and ground up menhaden.

We took off for one of our favorite fishing holes, the flats around Dameron Marsh. There were about 10 other boats and the sea conditions were pretty sporty. I would guess around two feet and about 5 second intervals. The wind was moving very strong, and the waves were kicking. No problem, we were determined to get on the fish.

Got anchored up in about 18 feet of water close to a ledge. We got the chum flowing in a new contraption I built out of PVC pipe. I’ll try to get a picture of it soon. It works far better than anything I have found on the market.

For fishing we set out 2 spot and 2 eels on opposite sides of the boat. The first couple of hours we were fishing backwards. I call it that when the boat is pointing one way but the bait and chum are flowing the opposite, “Chumming the anchor”.

Fish number one: Well despite all things seemingly working against us we hooked up with a big one. These fish are impressive, pull like they are intent on getting you in the bay, and just because you get them to the boat does not mean that you are even close to getting him in the boat. This guy swam directly under the boat straight to the chum line, yep got caught in it and I am thankful Scott was in the boat. I let off the drag as much as I could to let him swim while we maneuvered around the line, the anchor, the motor, and again. This guy was not going to make it easy. Finally, he tired out and we grabbed him in the net. It is the one I am holding.

Rain storm: We could see it in the distance, got calls from people on land and we knew a deluge was on the way. It did not have any lightning in the storm and we knew it was too late to run so we decided to just hunker down. Kept dry for the most part and Scott being a sport took the side that was getting wet. He and you all know I am not much for getting wet. Finally, the rain cleared but it was still a good wind.

Fish number two: Well it took a few hours of working on setup and bait and chumming but we hooked another one. Turned out they were both the same size. It can be remarkable how two fish can fight so differently. This one just kind of hung out by the boat with no particular place to go. We were leery of trying to land him so quickly but at some point we just gave it a go. Well, it turned out he was not ready at all. He jumped out of the net, back into the water and took off. Certainly we took another 10 min of fighting and we finally got him into the boat. He was in fact still powerful, the last picture attached is where he slapped my leg. The pic only shows half of his tail width.

Interesting site: We saw a sea turtle, I have a video that I will try to edit a bit to focus just on it and updated this post. 

Anyway, a good day and two good fish.

Set off on our now annual tuna fishing trip to Rudee Inlet on the Midnight Sun. We had such good luck last year even given that we had a shark problem that we were all excited for our return visit.

Funny how the trip started taking a turn early. We started off maybe a bit later than anticipated because I was teaching Sunday School and Jack was singing in his church. We will all have to go visit his church one day to hear him sing. Anyway Ron and Joe came to my house to pick me up and we met Jack in Kilmarnock so off we went.

Chicken gone awry…I saw a sign in Gloucester where a business was offering a $200 sign on bonus and I commented on how hard it is for businesses to get employees now at the same time as we have an unemployment problem (those seem to conflict to a simple person). Anyway we had to work about an hour and a half all told to get chicken for the trip. This was caused by the fact that no fast-food place had staff to run the thing, just barely enough to open the drive thru. Ron was fit to be tied and could have cooked the chicken on his head. He was so hot they gave us apple pies to hold off the terror that was coming for them.

Traffic of course was crazy. We were in bumper to bumper traffic most of the way from Hampton Roads to the other side of the tunnel. Well at least we didn’t get into a road range incident like Mike and Cody had to deal with. They were not sure exactly why this guy went into such a rage but they were able to escape the crazy without harm to anyone. Not sure why people go off to such extremes, one good prayer would certainly help them.

Ok getting to fishing, we had a wonderful weather day! About 80, low humidity, non-existent swells and they were spaced so far apart it was so gentle we could not have gotten a much better day to fish than we had.

We were in search of the gulf stream and we found it after about an hour. The water temp went from 70 to 80 degrees in just a few thousand yards. The water of the gulf stream is just breathtaking, it is such a unique blue that I can describe it but hopefully you can see the photos and the videos I am adding at the bottom.

Generally, this break between the warm and cold is great for tuna but they were just not there. We did get 5 Mahi (dolphins) to hook up but only got 2 to the boat. The others found a way to get tangled with each other or other teasers so they busted the line.

Trolled a while longer (and I was disappointed with the decision) but it was decided we would stop trolling and move to bottom fishing for Tilefish. There must be a million tiles under the area because we moved a few times and they were just there. Ended up with 21 tiles ranging from maybe 6 to 10 pounds.

Did not get the species we were looking for but all of the team Ron (the MAFL), Joe, Jack, Mike, and Cody all had a good time. Had a bunch of laughs and great meals together which is what really great fishing is all about.

A side adventure that I will not soon forget is the Shark Encounter. Jack and I was just looking out the starboard side of the boat and maybe a thousand yards away a giant Great White Shark breeched the water. This thing was huge, my estimate is 15 feet but best described as huge. This guy was completely out of the water by a good margin. Capt. Ryan screamed to see if anyone else saw this as well. Certainly the coolest thing I have seen in the wild. Maybe a once in a lifetime but this was by far the highlight of the trip.

Well it has been a long-time in the making but I am now finally finished the fire pit. I had wanted to have one from the time we moved in but it took Isasis to take a tree down in the perfect spot for me to do it. I posted that article on Aug 6th of last year. The stump was so big that I just couldn’t move or cut it so I had to wait until we could get a crane here. Well finally got it moved.

I am repurposing some of the cut tree as seats. Good conversation piece and if nothing else can split them for firewood. I repurposed the pallet moving the slats close together to make a cover. I still plan on sanding and finishing the tops of the seats but I can do that when the weather breaks.

Chuck and I have moved dirt to fill and rocks a plenty to take a quick break. 8 tons of dirt, 4 tons of gravel, 1 ton of rip-rap rock, and seemingly a ton of tree trunk.

This is a fishing report blog and certainly we will go over the many fishing adventures I have had with my friends over this year but 2020 will only go down in history for only one reason, Covid 19. This virus has dominated the world all year with no let up, it has ruined our families with devastating departures of our loved ones, taken away our ability to hold dear those that we love and ruined so many lives it is hard to put it on a valid scale. But, hopefully 2020 has clarified for us in a way we were previously incapable of understanding the things that are most precious to us. Our families, our friends, and our faith have finally had a chance to be prominent in our lives that we just took for granted all too often. 

Have you like me reevaluated everything that is important. Who would have thought toilet paper would be a most sought after commodity. A friend of my daughter, Sara brought a house warming gift of toilet paper with a bow on it, that is the only sign you need. The essentials of life have become that staples and not the extravagant. Our economy has changed to a way I dare say will ever return to the old normal way again. eCommerce is the current norm, buy local/sell local is becoming a thing of the past unless you have a niche market or service. I hope you are adopting my policy, I always buy local unless it is something I just can’t find. I built a deck this year before wood prices tripled, used boats are of higher value than ever and new boats are completely sold out. I feel for each of those that have lost their businesses but I don’t think the old norm will return and we need to see how we can help these people cope with the new norm not scratch to try to save an old model. 

Before I start the year of fishing I want to introduce you to one of the best things I have done that I have continually failed to mention but I think has made me a better person more capable of handling a year like 2020. In 2018, Chuck (aka Angelique) and I joined a group called Young Life devoted to the spiritual development and introduction to Christ in middle and high schoolers of Northumberland. I urge you to support this mission, the kids of Northumberland are truly better off with having this quality of young leaders to look up to as mentors. Our leader Laura was such a fantastic person I couldn’t help but want to be involved. After being promoted she was followed by a new leader Caty, again just such a fantastic person gives you great hope for the future. Kristi also a leader of the group and she being from the county knows what these kids have been through and is such a benefit to them. For me I get so much out of the experience it is hard to imagine, the kids look to me as another grandfather and have come up with the nickname Dr. Phil, a little because of my accent and a little at how I talk with them. Certainly one of the highlights of my week is when we can spend time with the kids. The time together is yet another thing that has been devastated by Covid. For people our age verbal and online seems to be working for most fine but remote learning and remote relationships for the kids is just not going to work. Donating yourself to a good volunteer program is just one way to level up, if you are having coping issues of any kind get out of yourself and go be involved with something that allows you to serve rather than be served, you will get more out of it than you give. 

I looked back in the blog to summarize the year and read the 2019 year in review first. What a terrible report, I looked at the world in a way that it disappointed me rather than what it did for me. In 2019 I had a great job, had a wonderful family and great friends, had our health, had a great faith and a great church to call home. This is what I hope 2020 has taught me and my hope for you is you reflect on 2019 as well. Maybe you didn’t have a blog to write about how the world had done you an injustice when the fish didn’t jump in the boat as expected or you had an unannounced expense that set your dream purchase back but I’m sure you are looking at the world differently today.

Fishing reports, we are finally here, and if you are still here thank you for reading this far. The spring striper fishing was cancelled but I could just look at the water in our creek and tell it was going to be a good year. You could just look and see more abundant life than normal. Cobia season this year was very good for the number of times we could get out. We caught the biggest Cobia I had ever caught and in general had a lot of Cobia over the rail. Went with Ron and Jack Cobia fishing, got one tagged fish which for me was the first and set a modern day record of 27 cobia in the day. Went tuna fishing off the coast with Captain Ryan Rogers and Doug, had a great time and caught a bunch of fish. Set a few friends up for a record like my friend Basil, he caught three species of fish in one day that he had previously never caught. Had a good Spanish Mackerel season, maybe not great certainly not a record but a good season. Brought some new people on the boat for Spanish like Chris and Adam, always good to have new friends meet. Scott and I go bottom fishing not for us but to take the kids and/or get some fish for our friends Ms Ava and Shirley. Took a friend of mine fishing with his two boys, it is always special to take a kid fishing, it really is the best part of fishing.

Ok a special report for Striper. Without a doubt this was the best year I have ever had fishing for stripers. I have learned a lot from going with Captain’s like Jack Fraizer on the Mystic Lady II and Ryan Rogers on the Midnight Sun. Also, i’m sure we are better prepared to have the correct baits, know more about the tactics necessary, have a better understanding of where to fish, know more about the sounder and birds to know what they are telling us about the fish. I believe also there is just more fish in the bay that are of legal size than I have ever seen so I don’t want to give myself more credit than I deserve. Without question it still takes a lot of things to go right in order to catch keepers. Had a lot of really great people on board and if you go through my blog entries for 2020 you will see them all mentioned. Is there a better way to quarantine than on a boat, nope at least not for me. 

Well 2020 will go down in history as devastating but I hope you have had a good year. For me personally it has been a good year, I have been at home working since Apr and we are having a good time together. Chuck and I were built for this pandemic as everything we need is right here in this little community and we are content with our lives. I have found and I pray you have found a series of hopeful events that will point you to the most hopeful thing I can steer you towards which is a faith in Christ. Once you understand you are not a mistake, you come from something wonderful, going to something wonderful, you realize that what you do and who you are matters.

Thanks for reading and if you got here I know you are a dear friend or I certainly hope we get to meet in the future. That may be a boat, at church, at our house or yours. Love you all. 

A special thanks to all of our volunteer organizations. Please contribute your time, talents, and/or money to these great groups where you feel as we are all the beneficiaries.

• Smith Point Sea Rescue
• Fairfields Volunteer Fire Department
• Northumberland county rescue squad
• Friends of the Northumberland County Animal Shelter
• Northumberland YoungLife & WyldLife or Here

Set out this morning with Scott, Pop Pop (Scott’s Father) and Charlie. Had to break ice this morning for at least the second time this year to get out of the creek. It was maybe only an ⅛ of an inch this morning but the other day it was measured at ⅜ so an improvement but is always crazy when it has been so warm this year. We left with intention of going to the old number one and red 62, saw some great big bait balls but nothing really hit. Got some intel from Mike and just looking out over the water and could tell everyone was going to the cut channel. I wish I had taken a picture of the boats when I got there but I doubt my phone could have told the story but I would bet it was at least 500 boats there. It looked like a Walmart parking lot on black Friday. 

We caught our limit again today and these fish continue to be just distended. I am not sure how many boats there caught their limit but we had a great time. Having Pop and Charlie on the boat is always great.

We have had such a great year and this was a great way to end the year. Tomorrow is going to be too rough to go out and I this point I need a break. I will see you next year. I do have an end of year review post going out so wake up early Jan 1 to read (Ok whenever you get around to it as it has been a very trying year and a great one at the same time.

Certainly one of the most prolific baits you can have in the water today is the old style bucktails. Having them in tandems may double your chances of catching. Size and Color combinations have everything to do with the success rates so try different combinations. I like some contrasting colors as well as matching. You just never know what day they will want white head/yellow bucktail or white head and white bucktail so they have plenty on hand. Also, if you want to run all day with little to no hang ups you need to create a spread. You create the spread for two reasons, one they wont get tangled and two you are fishing at two different depths which is a good idea as well.

Setup, I like to choose the leading weight based on where I want to place the rod in my four rod setup, heavier at the front so I can run it less behind the boat and then lighter weight out the back further back. Then off of a 3 way setup I tie or clip the lure. One very important thing to do is separate the length of line and weight of the two lures. I seperate the weight of the lure by at least an ounce. Even if you can’t have different weights the length of the line will help keep them apart. Keeping half the weight and twice the length back will keep the top one out of sight of the deeper one and you will never get them tangled and create two opportunities to catch. This is also true when pulling in the fish, the other lure is out of the way and unless the fish is fowl hooked and spinning you should not have a problem.

I don’t measure the line with anything other than the span of my arms (casual pull not full stretch, who would do that) but I would say 5 ft and 10 ft leaders. This will definitely get the heavier one well out of the way of the lighter one.

I had my good friend Brandon and his two boys Sage and Asher come up for the day. We had a later start than we hoped for but finally got off the dock in Mitch’s boat and headed to the NNK reef. Buddy and Todd were on our tail and they headed to 63a where Vince and Dave were already fishing. We saw nothing at the reef so we joined the fleet near Smith Point Lighthouse. It was slow going for a good bit of the day but we finally hooked one. Sage got it because he had just won a deciding game of rock paper scissors. Turned out it was a nice fish but not legal so we tossed him back. Got a big hit on the outside rig and it was Asher’s turn, he fought it into the boat just fine and Brandon netted him. This was a really fat 23 inch fish, they named him Fill short for Fillet. Got another short but followed that up with a 22 inch on a back rod. They had to work as a team to get that long line big weight and fish in the boat but yep he came in as well.

This is the best part of fishing for our group, we love taking kids out. These two were just great to have onboard. Very intrested in learning every aspect of how we fish and jumped in to help each other. They carried on a good conversation with two old men and Mitch and I really enjoyed the day.

One good thing they saw was how calm the water was when we left compared to how quickly the water changed and got a little rougher.

Today started out very foggy. I think it was better on the water than on the land but at this stage of my life I don’t dare risk any non-critical ventures. We stayed in port until 11:00 and waited until we were sure it was not going to get worse. The water was still maybe a foot swells at the worst, I guess if you have fog you are going to have mostly still air. The water was 46 and the air temp was very doable at about 55.

Fishing, we went to 63a just as planned. We did stop once when we saw a lot of boats at the old 1GW but for us it did not show enough life to make us leave our intended path, another good choice. When we got to 63 we saw two captains boats, one was just leaving so I did not get the name the other was the Heritage out of Reedville. He was just circling so I knew we were close. He likely just needed one more fish because he was gone very quickly. Anyway, we immediately started picking up some 19 – 21 inch fish but for us at this point in the season we kept throwing them back. We knew there were bigger fish in the area you just needed to put in the time. 

We ended up with a 25” and 23” and both were complete pigs. The stock this year has been really fat so obviously they are eating well. We had Vince our friend in his boat, he ended up with a very nice 23 and we came in together. All told we fished for about 2 hours and caught in the mid thirties for numbers (I wasn’t counting great as they were coming in quickly). 

We caught them on the same baits that have been working so well. I tried a chatterbait for the first time as my friend Mike just catches tons with them. For me that was the only bait that didn’t catch, obviously I need to go with him one time to see how he fishes it. He catches too many for it not to be a good bait.