Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

Did a a bit of wreck fishing today. Caught some small sheepshead, nice puppy drum and sea bass, and large triggerfish.

I started the weekend at the Triangle Reef. While jigging for sea bass, I caught a half-dozen big black drum. I would know it was a drum when I would think that I had snagged the reef but it would start to move. Caught a bunch of small bluefish and a handful of nice triggerfish. I kept a limit of big sea bass. I finished the weekend on artificial reefs inside the bay where I caught little sea bass, more small bluefish, pufferfish, pigfish and a good number of tautog that were tagged and released. One tog was already tagged. I’m a fan of Virginia’s artificial reefs.

Fished Back River Reef for a bit this morning before the front came through. Caught a pup and some specks from the dock before heading out. At the reef, the puffer, oyster toad and baby sea bass bite was strong. I lost the one big thing I hooked. It felt like a sheepshead. Made it back in before the rain.

Grandad passed away yesterday. Charlie Shelton was just shy of 102 years of age. When he turned 100, the newspaper ran a story about him. It said that he had “about” 74 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. This amused me greatly. Despite including attorneys, engineers, musicians, mathematicians, teachers, doctors, professors, rocket scientists…apparently, the Shelton clan does not know how to count. How many cousins do I have? I have no idea. I do know that grandad taught all of us a lot about living and made each and every one of us feel special.

Not bad for a sharecrop farmer who raised a family from a converted chicken coop and was told that he would not see the age of 40 after two long stays in a sanitarium and having most of a lung removed due to tuberculosis.

I spent the last couple of days wreck fishing inside the bay and trolling along the oceanfront. The nights, I fished from our dock. Sea bass were a problem at times but I did manage an impressive catch of oyster toads. Some were real drag pullers. I caught some other stuff: sheepshead, tautog, pufferfish, pigfish, pinfish, porgy, flounder, bluefish, king mackerel, red drum, perch, speckled trout, and gray trout. Nothing big…other than the toads. I did have a Mola mola hooked up briefly. I caught 3 tautog that already had tags in them…fish we had tagged a couple of weeks ago. I’m going to start naming those fish. There was a good amount of bait and I saw a number of whales, as many as a half-dozen at a time. It should be a good whale-watching season.

I managed to get in a couple of hours this morning before the front came through. It was really nice, then it really was not. I stayed close to home so the ride in was short. The baby sea bass population is doing very well. Occasionally, a tog would get to the bait.

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Stan and I went back out yesterday to the place we had caught the fish the day before. It was not pretty; rough and rainy. More importantly, the fish were not biting. We only managed 2 toadfish. We did catch a few sea bass and a couple of tautog. It was really slow and we came back in early. I was not going to fish today but when I got up this morning, it looked calm and not raining too much. Well, it was still dark so I really couldn’t see, but it sounded ok out there, so I went. It was a good morning. Still, only caught 1 toadfish but I caught pufferfish, pigfish, sea bass, a few tautog, a black drum, a red drum, and a sheepshead. I was back home for lunch. Everything was released except for the sheepshead. It will be dinner.

We fished close to home today. It was gorgeous and the oyster toad bite was on fire! We caught some other stuff also. We caught 24 tautog. Two were caught twice. Tagged them in the morning and recaught them around lunchtime. We caught sea bass, gray trout, and red drum. Stan Simmerman caught a drum that was just barely small enough to keep. I caught one the was not small enough. It actually was the largest red I have caught. We, meaning Hunter Southall, caught 3 big sheepshead. I lost another at the boat and we had a couple other sheep encounters. Really nice day on the bay.

We caught a baby sheepshead and lost two others at the boat. Stan got a big sheep to the surface but broke it off. We caught a handful of tautog, one that had a tag in it. We caught 3 nice puppy drum and went 1 for 2 on big drum. Small sea bass were numerous. It was a nice Thursday on the bay.