Put in at 16th and made my way to the M&M and dropped the trolling motor. Tried to stay on the ledges on the Hampton side. Nothing hitting on artificials except one puppy drum on a gold spoon/gulp minnow. Plenty of croaker and 3 undersized flounder hit on manhadden and blood worn. Managed to pull in one 18in Striper and headed back in. Water was still pretty choppy for a small boat but the drift was easy with an incoming tide and the wind pushing the other way, not a bad day considering the time of year and better than doing yard work.

Way to get out here !>..congrats....Bob

Any size to the croaker yet?

thanx for the report, this time of year i like to take my son and his friends out from city park and motor to that area and the hampton bar for some croaker and flounder. just don't find too many keepers of flounder in that area like a few years past. we used to do pretty well around easter on the flounder in those areas. thanx again for the onfo on the croaker biting now.. LOOSE SKREWS

The croaker were not bad in size I'd say they ranged from 12 to 16 inches maybe a few more bigger. All in all we boated at least 25 to 30 but we were out there form 1pm to 7:30 so it seemed like a slow day. We had to go around the area were they are dredging and we made 3 runs on the drift were I'd motor up and go back to the starting point and drift again. Wondering if i should have gone to the HRBT and fished Fort Wool but didn't mind drifting and taking it a lil easy. So if anyone has a HRBT report I'd like to know what I missed out on. The Yamaha I'm running right now is undersized for the McKee craft so I try not to do any thing to heroic. I am working on getting a 78 Evinrude ready for it now were I can make some longer runs.

Thanks for the report . How deep were ya fishing ? I fished today from 8am-1pm from the mmbt to the Jrb and only had one hit and that was on cut mullet. I had 3 poles out with squid , shrimp and mullet. The wind picked up so I tried over by Nit and nothing there either. Water temp at the Mmbt was around 55 and 57 at the Jrb. I talked to a guy fishing at the Jrb and he said in 2 hours he caught 1 croaker about a pound and a small cat.I would think 60 degree water and up would be alot better.

I'd say 5 to 15 ft of water on average. We anchored over any holes we found. Many of them came at the same time when we ran into a school. Fished until the bite dropped of. 5 poles in the rod holders and each man had a pole in hand. 8 lines in the water all together. The guys at Wallaces said that Big Croaker and juvenile black drum were being reported on north of the JRB off of some rocks. I wasn't familiar with the area there were speaking of though. We'll I just planted the garden and some grass seed so I'm gonna spend the incoming tide sitting on the peir with a few poles in the water. Funny how you really don't mind relaxing on a peir after a day on the boat. Nothing to really think about or be careful of sitting on the peir. Then that makes me want to get on the boat all over again. Viscious cycle of the greener grass.

Hey thanks for the info. I tried about 15-20' then I tried the channel. I guess with the water this cold still when you find them you just have to stay on top of them like you said and there's nothing wrong with sitting on a pier man ! Good luck.

I was out in that area most of Sunday the 5th. Not even one bite. Fished the outgoing and incoming tides.