Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

EPSON MFP image

http://www.sportfishingmag.com/fishing-inshore-and-offshore-virginia-beach

We stayed close to the beach and fished about half a day today. We caught a total of 27 tautog with the largest being about 22 inches long. DNA samples were collected from each fish. Tags were placed in released fish. We caught one fish that already had a tag in it.

We ran out to the tilefish grounds yesterday. It was a bit sporty out there. We had Congressman Rob Wittman with us again. It always seems to a bit sporty when the Congressman fishes with us. We had to weed through the dogfish but we ended up with a nice catch of tilefish to 12 pounds. We also caught a lot of really nice sea bass that we pointed out that we would be able to keep if the federal government would give us back our wintertime sea bass season.

We went back after tautog yesterday. We caught some big ones. The largest one we kept weighed in at 21.5 pounds. Stan Simmerman caught that fish. It was the same length as the current state record but did not have the girth of that fish. The largest that we released was about 15 pounds. Wes Blow had a release device that he had gotten from the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program to try out. It releases the fish at a set depth. It seemed to work well. He also released one about 13 pounds so there are some big togs out there with tags in them. DNA samples were collected from each fish and tags were placed in the released fish.

We fished the Triangle Wrecks Saturday for tautog. We caught 20 fish up to 10 pounds. Johnny Boyd caught our largest tog. Wes Blow was out there Thursday and he caught a pair of 10 pounders. We got DNA samples from each tautog. We caught 6 tautog that had been previously tagged. The rockfish were out there. We had gannets diving around us and had big rockfish chasing our sinkers to the surface. There was a charter boat out there catching them pretty good…legally. They had scientists onboard conducting a tagging study.

We went back out after tautog Sunday. We caught some big fish Saturday. We got bigger ones Sunday. The three largest weighed 14, 15, and 19 pounds. We also caught a really big sea bass that, with regret, we tagged and released. Dr. Hamish Small was with us collecting DNA samples from each tautog. He also managed to catch the largest of the day (and of the year…so far).

We went to a “new to us” wreck today. After finding the wreck, we caught some nice tautog. We weighed in 3 citation-sized fish to 12.5 pounds. We caught and released some pretty sea bass to 22 inches long and we caught a couple of triggerfish that did not know it is the middle of January. While we were fishing, we listened to a couple other Virginia Beach boats to the east of us.  They had a good catch of yellowfin tuna.