Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

George Poveromo came to Virginia Beach to film an episode of his television show “World of Saltwater Fishing”, www.georgepoveromo.com . I joined him on the Top Notch, with Captain Russ Kostinas and mate Bobby Kostinas: www.topnotchcharterfishing.com . I really liked the old Top Notch but this new boat is a really nice ride. Fish on it if you get the chance.

Russ put us on the fish and Bobby was a wizard in the cockpit. The target for this episode was white marlin. We caught those and they were not camera shy. We also caught a roundscale spearfish, yellowfin tuna, skipjack tuna, and a bunch of dolphin. I got in on some great fishing on a great boat and George got an action-packed television show!

The show will air in 2026 on the Discovery Channel and will have second airing on ESPN2.

Yesterday, we went out with Dr. Hamish Small to help him with his red drum research. We caught 9 red drum and a cobia. They were all tagged and released. We also caught a flounder, which was not released. Three of the largest drum (citation sized) were fitted with pop-off satellite tags. They will release from the fish after 45 days and transmit their data. Please release any of these fish with tag still in place…and report it! Our fish were mostly caught on live spot provided by Tricia Neill (Honey, we are out if you aren’t too busy ).
We also caught bluefish and some full-sized southern and butterfly stingrays. One of the big southerns had a nice cobia swimming with it. Instead of helping me with the stingray, that was kicking my butt, Hamish Small and Wes Blow casted to the cobia. It did turn on their baits but did not bite. Wes did snag the stingray with his jig so I did get some help after all.

We took Dr. Hamish Small back out to tag red drum this morning. We caught 10 red drum, including one that was already tagged, a black drum, a nice flounder, a number of bluefish, and Stan Simmerman caught a full-grown southern stingray. 

We took Dr. Hamish Small out to tag red drum this morning. The largest of the drum are being fitted with psat tags. These tags will release after 45 days and transmit their recorded data. Please keep an eye out for fish with these tags (it is not like you can miss them). Release the fish with the tag still attached so it can continue to gather data. We had a good trip catching 16 red drum. We also caught a half-dozen or so medium bluefish. It was a busy morning.

Yesterday, I trolled plugs along the oceanfront and caught multiple sharks. Today, I tried again and caught multiple red drum. I like the drum better.

After being beat up by big red drum and a sporty ride in yesterday, I’d planned to take today off. Got a message from: Stan Simmerman, thinking about trout fishing, interested? Yep. The morning started with a topwater explosion and a fun fight until the end when the trout refused the net. That was the only topwater bite we had. The rest of the morning, Stan made me catch all of the trout as he wanted more net practice after that first fish (my story, I can tell it as I want to. I did mention maybe if I had a younger net man…) The bite was not hot, but I did manage to catch 4 speckled trout including a couple of nice ones. Stan caught a striped bass, a flounder, and a croaker.

Trolled along Virginia Beach today. Big schools of red drum south of Sandbridge. Cranked until I got too tired. Spanish were being caught by the fleet. Sounded like some good cobia catches off of the CB buoys and a handful of big kings have been caught the past couple of days from Cape Henry to Sandbridge.

I had the pleasure of fishing on the Special Kate this morning with the Southalls. It was a beautiful morning and that is all we fished. We had Hunter and 3 old retired guys. It was a beautiful ride. It looked very fishy with birds and busting bonito. The bite was slow. We got a single yellowfin then held onto one of a pair of bites. That was it. Charles then “suggested” that Hunter put out a Drone spoon behind a planer. As soon as he did that, bedlam happened. Poor Hunter, he will now hear for the rest of his life, or at least the rest of ours, “I told you to put that spoon out. You should listen to old guys. We know stuff.” We got covered up by a nice class of tuna. One bit the teaser in an impressive bite. Eight others bit hooked baits. Now we have 3 old retired guys and Hunter with 8 screaming tuna. We had 74-year-old Leon cranking and gaffing tuna. No rest for anyone. Crossed lines, tunas sliding around the deck, beating us with their tails, the deck totally covered in blood with us sliding around in it while fighting tuna, while getting beat by tuna tails. It looked like a scene from a horror film. I have no idea how, but we landed 7 of those 8 tuna. I told Charles that we are too old for this. He said, “No, you are not”. It took a bit of time to get things back in some order and get baits back out. Immediately, more explosions. We desperately go for the rods not holding onto tuna yet to get those baits out of the water. We are hanging onto our limit plus one. The hook pulled on one so “just” our limit. I’m fighting the last of our now triple hook-up and the leader breaks just as Hunter gaffs the fish. We don’t dare put out any more baits, us old guys are tired (so was Hunter). We were running back in with a limit of nice yellowfin by 11:30 in the morning.

Rough ride out on the Special Kate this morning with Charles Southall and Hunter Southall . Ride back was about the same. 6 yellowfin tuna, 7 or 8 dolphin and a bird. The bird was released.