We headed out of Sunset around 8:30 and after fueling up, got to CH around 9:30/ !0. Scattered birds some bait and the armada out there. Heard we missed the early am bite. Picked up after about 2 hours, the birds formed up and began diving from the Ramada down about 3-4 miles. They roamed from very close to the beach to out maybe a mile and a half. We had a nice little run where we put 3 fat fish in the boat 30-40 inchers, and then with all the excitement, one of the newbies I had with me got a bunch of braided line wrapped up in the prop.

Anyway, got that fixed and then picked up the biggest fish of the day about 30 minutes later. All fish in about 25-30 ft of water, 2 caught on a 9" bunker Storm trailing a 24 oz white Mojo, one on a red&white stretch 25, and the big one on a blue/purple (don't know what the color is really called) stretch 25. No takers today on a chartreuse umbrella rig, stretch 30, or crippled alewive. Water temp 44.5 degrees. Spoke briefly with some of the guys via cell phone, but couldn't get anybody on 72 (I think my antenna may be too small).

Heard of a good bite around Rudee--guys at the dock had 6 35"-43" inch fish all caught outside Rudee in the am.

Hope the rest of you guys did OK. We're planning on heading out tomorrow again if the weather holds.

Nice work! Thanks for the report. I'm still sitting here at work........

You may want to take a close look at your prop. I hear that braided line, well any line, can really mess up your seals if its gets wrapped around your prop. Don't want any water getting in your lower unit.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Didn't get too tight and I just spun it out, so hopefully it'll be OK.

Nice job on the fish NJ!! Sounds like the bite is still hot. Get out there and catch 'em while you can, because I think that winter is getting ready to set in this weekend and might push those stripers south again. Thanks for the report and like Pete said, check that prop again.

--Don

I fished solo but managed to pull about 20 Striper out of the water.The Largest were caught off the beach at about 330pm then I caught 1 about every 15 min. or so til about 5pm.I used the 72 channel and talked to Therapy(BA) and Real McCoy.Thanks for the heads up on the Striper BA.

Nice job guys.

Naved - how did the gas hold up?

Way to go Mega!!!

Glad you're back. I think I used about 15-20 gallons today. I'll find out tomorrow when I fill up. Marina was closed when I got back in. Love that little 115 4-stroke--cruises between 20-25 and jist sniffs gas. Are you still planning a trip Sat??

Mega, we left at 2:52 (personally, I wanted to stay longer, but....) Looks like we missed the real fun by 40 minutes!!!!!

We got into that same afternoon bite just outside of Rudee Inlet. Caught 18 fish, kept 10. All were fat and sassy with most 36" to 42". Kept a couple of 32" fish early and had to release the biggest ones that were caught later. Lots of bait, huge flock of birds. We caught most of the fish offshore and downwind of the beehive, away from the fleet. And just like NJ1, that big spoon did nothing all day. Everything we caught was within 15 feet of the surface. 2 to 4 ounce "hot lips" jigs with 9" chartruse shad bodies are what worked for us. 20 foot leaders and a 4 to 6 ounce trolling sinker in line seemed to be the ticket. Gotta run. Got a boat to scrub and fish to clean.

I cought 3 or 4 on a Bunker Spoon with a mojo on a 3 way today.

Captain Dan took a few of us out today on the "Hampton Office". We caught 6 around the 30 in. range and 1 throw back. Had one bend my wire line rod way over and a guide broke off. It got under the back of the boat and got off. Still trying to get some of these 40 inchers you guys are talking about. That might have been it. We caught everything on red and white today. We talked to 2 guys on 72 and heard some other familiar names . That seems to be working out well.

We fished south near sandbridge pier and caught a few there. When we were down there there was a net boat from white stone pulling a net. We saw three men throwing the fish back that were in the net and the fish were floating on top dead . There were as many as 100 fish in the water and 90% of them would have been keepers for recreational fisherman. How come they can get away with this? We as fisherman would have been busted and fined for something like this. Just think of all of the female fish these idiots just killed along with their eggs. I want to know if this is standard thing that happens and what can I do to help stop this. It made me mad to see this disreguard for the states most reguarded fish. Any replies welcome.

we fished the green can area choosing to stay away from the armadas off the ramada and rudee. caught many 35 inch fat fish. bait of choice was definately anything in bunker color. the umbrellas were hot all day. we had the most solid bait marks i have seen all year in this area. it was a nice day out there.

That makes me sick! I don't understand the whole concept of gillnetting fish and then throwing them back - seems retarded. Why not give them a finite number of tags, let them net to their heart's content, and when the tags are used up - END OF SEASON. Seems way too complicated with four sets of tags, multiple colors, bay here, coastal there - big, small. yadayadayada. I've gone through a couple of these "slicks" of keeper fish in past years and it pisses me off to no end. MISMANAGEMENT OF A NATURAL RESOURCE @ ITS FINEST

Its a sad thing for sure. I know from other posts on this board that the commercial season opened on stripers on the 1st. I know they have limits too, but it doesn't seem to make sense to throw back fish that are dead...they might as well keep them too.

way to getem!!!!!!

I have been catching alot of fish with lesions,maybe they are throwing back the sick fish that wouldnt be worth useing a tag on.That is not an excuse but it could be a reason.VMRC should know about it for sure.

Thanks to you,Mega Bite, for turning us on to a productive tautog trip.Ended keeping eight from 4-5 lbs.Boat behind us caught a 13lber (on the Boga Grip scale)which probally mo' like 14 pounds on certified scale.After dropping crew off at Rudee, I slow trolled around outside the inlet,catching a couple 36" quick on stretchs. Pretty comical catching stripers from the flying bridge by yourself.Lost a REAL slob when hooks pulled at boatside, sending stretch flying past me on the bridge and higher than my outriggers! That would have been an ouchy if it had got somebody. Anyway, hoping to fish Saturday, all though weather will be stinky.Oh,well, I can still fish the Col-Regs line in a stiffish south wind.

I'll tell you why they throw alot of fish back, (which is a F'''' up reason). All of the commercial guys have a certai9n number of tags allotted for the season, so in order to maximize their $ catch they will waste / throw back the smaller fish so they can keep more larger fish....Remember they get paid by total # of pounds caught and not by the fish.

Nice report! like most losers, I'm at work! I am going to try to get out Tue. or Wed. Hope the cooler temps next week don't drive em too far south.

I think most of us have seen the netters throwing fish overboard at one point or another. It's a tough issue. Once apon a time they were allowed to keep a lot of those fish as "by catch", meaning they targeted one species and caught another. And they were allowed to have a certain percentage of their catch in undersized fish (used to be 10% on flounder). But the system was wide open to abuse. Boats would go out and "target croaker" and catch 3,000 lbs of "by catch" stripers. All nice and legal, regardless of season. It was like putting the weasel is charge of the chicken coop. And the fact that the fish were already dead was the argument they used to pillage the bay and offshore waters. Same argument the long liners still use today for undersized swordfish. The fishermen were trusted once, and they abused that trust. The only sure way to prevent that is to make them throw back, dead or alive, bycatch and/or undersized fish. It may cost a few tons of fish in the short haul, but it saves thousands of tons in the long haul. As to them culling their catch and throwing back the smaller fish dead, that may very well be illegal, I'm not up on the current regulations. I'd like to know if it is. I'd take pictures and call the Coast Guard with a boat name/hull number in a second. I may lose a few commercial fishing buddies over it, but I'd be glad to take time off of work to testify in court. I don't abide by thieves period. Wether they live in Reedville and wear Helly Hansons or live in Washington and wear a tie doesn't matter. The smell is the same. Sorry about the soap box folks. I feel better now.

We also got into the bite off Rudee yesterday. Caught 10 fish between 32 and 39 inches. The birds in the afternoon off Va. Beach pier were great! I hope the pictures turn out! Caught everything on chartreuse Stretch 25's and chartreuse umbrella's. My first ocean stripers! I heard a fellow on the radio say he had the number of the commercial boat that was throwing out the dead fish. We came by and saw the dead stripers floating after that.

[quote=skinnys-kid,Feb 3 2006, 09:14 AM][quote=steel eel,Feb 3 2006, 01:50 AM]We fished south near sandbridge pier and caught a few there. When we were down there there was a net boat from white stone pulling a net. We saw three men throwing the fish back that were in the net and the fish were floating on top dead . There were as many as 100 fish in the water and 90% of them would have been keepers for recreational fisherman. How come they can get away with this? We as fisherman would have been busted and fined for something like this. Just think of all of the female fish these idiots just killed along with their eggs. I want to know if this is standard thing that happens and what can I do to help stop this. It made me mad to see this disreguard for the states most reguarded fish. Any replies welcome.
[/quote]
Its a sad thing for sure. I know from other posts on this board that the commercial season opened on stripers on the 1st. I know they have limits too, but it doesn't seem to make sense to throw back fish that are dead...they might as well keep them too.

[/quote]

It`s called "G R E E D"--saddly to say, all good things will come to and end,then
what will the commerical guys say...They will plead hard times and more than likely get bailed out with some sort of govt. relief..We get 2 per, and pay dearly
for them and it`s called "sport"..They cul to get bigger fish but throw back dead ones--reverse the rolls and the commerical guys would go balistic...Remember the days of Chuck Robb!!!!!!!!! It`s because of him, in my opinion, that our " big grey trout" are gone, only a few stop at the CBBT in the spring. Sooner or later the Strippers will meet the same plight...But, who will get the most restrictions, yep you got it, us Hook-N-Line guys... I could go on and on, but as I do the hotter I get. Just for fact, when is the last time the big "CHOPPER" blues have been in the bay, in any numbers, mid to late 80`s maybe? Nuf Said.

Capt.Skid
"ONE MO PASS"

Whose bonehead idea was it to go with individual tags issued to commercial striper fisherman. I don't understand the logic. This encourages them to keep killing the small fish so that they can keep only the big ones. If they go back to yearly permits that let them keep "x" number pounds of fish per season, they wouldn't need to cull their catch. This would allow the better fishermen to get their limits as early as possible. Then they could go target other species, instead of going out every day, only keeping the biggest fish. I certainly beleive everybody has the right to earn a fair living and support their families.
It seems that our law makers will never stop taking one step forward and then two steps back! Am I missing something?

It's a complex issue. You're trying to buck almost 400 years of waterman tradition in the Chesapeake Bay. Striped Bass were mentioned in Capt. John Smith's journal as one of the staples of the first settlers. By the time the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth rock, Virigina watermen had been working the Chesapeake for almost two decades. 1607 according to my license plate. 398 years. Thats a lot of history. And with the Virginia State Government, including His Honor the Governor, in bed with industry and the special interest groups, it's real hard to get anything done. Yes, I'm starting to get disillusioned with the whole thing.

Culling through Striper to keep larger ones should only be allowed if the fish net has been in the water while the boat is present.They should have a time limit the net can be set, say 6 hours.Then they could cull through living Striper, a few may be dead but they should be required to keep them.They should be given incentives for keeping the Smaller ones like being given some tags back if they have a certain % of Striper that are a defined undersized fish.If the Fisherman are treated with respect and feel like they arent being treated unfairly they are more likley to follow the rules.

The fish we saw them throwing back were live. Once the fish is caught in the gill net the damage is done. The fish either drown or they substain damage to the gills which is like us being choked. The net cuts the gills which results in the fish floating up after their released back socalled live. That is why all those fish are making a striper slick.