Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

We went out in Greg Scott’s boat today, after bluefin tuna. We caught rockfish.

CHUMLINE JANUARY 2013

The Irv Fenton Memorial Rockfish Tournament concluded on December 31. This event was sponsored by Wilcox Bait and Tackle. Winners were determined by weight of the single heaviest fish.

Some impressive fish were weighed in. Fishing with live eels at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and along the Eastern Shore side of the bay produced most of the larger fish.

The winners:

1st: Ken Neill: 55 pounds
2nd: Wes Blow: 52 pounds 5 ounces
3rd: Tabb Bridges: 47 pounds 7 ounces
4th: Jerald Abraham: 45 pounds 4 ounces
5th: Kelsey Bridges: 45 pounds
6th: Rick Wineman: 43 pounds 5 ounces
7th: Charles Southall: 42 pounds 2 ounces

Note: the Norfolk Anglers Club’s meeting is actually on the 14th.
Wireline – NAC – Jan 2013

We went back to the offshore wrecks this morning and had similar results as the day before. Actually, a bit better. We caught a 105-fish limit of big sea bass. Eight fish weighed-in over five pounds with a few over six. Charles Southall again caught our largest bass at 6 pounds 8 ounces. We fished wrecks in the 20-30 fathom depth range.

We ran out to one of the offshore wrecks and found it loaded with big sea bass. We had our 90-fish limit in short order. We had a lot of fish over 4 pounds. The largest, caught by Charles Southall, weighed in at 6 pounds. 3 other fish weighed over 5 pounds. We ran in and trolled for bluefin tuna for a couple of hours without any encounters. We quit fishing about lunchtime and came on in to clean fish. We are going back out there in the morning.

I spent New Year’s Day fishing for speckled trout with Wes Blow. Fishing was pretty fantastic, especially for Wes. By the time I caught my third fish, Wes had already caught between 2 and 3 dozen. Things evened out a bit when I moved to the back of the boat with Wes and started fishing his gear. It was even better when Wes took a break and just watched me catch fish for a bit. I lost a really big fish and then managed to catch a 28-inch fish that weighed 7.25 pounds on the digital scale. The one I lost prior to that was much larger. The hook pulled at the boat. Wes got back to fishing seriously after that.

Wes caught so many “24ish” inch fish that he was just slinging them into the boat. We weighed some of his “23.75 inch” fish that were too small for a release citation: 5 to 5.5 pounds. Wes is a tough measurer. We only caught a few fish under 20 inches long and maybe 60 between 20 and 28 inches long with a lot in the 22 to 25 inch range. We fished from dark to dark and the bite was mostly on the whole time, in spurts: wait 15 minutes and then get 3 or 4 bites at one time. Wait another 5 minutes and it would happen again. I do not think we waited for more than 15 minutes in between bites all day and mostly the bites came in multiples. We missed a lot of bites but we caught a whole lot of fish…well, Wes did. I caught plenty.

We released everything today though we had a space in the cooler for that one that got away.

Bernie Sparrer and Hunter Southall fished the Elizabeth River today. They caught and released 30 speckled trout to 26 inches long.

Dec. 23 and 24, I went out each morning and eeled for big rockfish with Charles Southall. We fished until early afternoon both days due to evening holiday things. We caught nothing.

On the 23rd, Hunter Southall did not want to rockfishing with us. He and David Brabrand went to the Elizabeth River after specks. We got a photo text early that morning: David, first fish, 24-inch release citation. I so wanted to be able to tell them at the end of the day that our fish would eat theirs for a snack. They ended catching about 60 speckled trout including 5 fish between 24 and 26 inches long. At the end of the day, Hunter said that we should have gone fishing with him.

That night, Wes Blow ran out to the high rise area and eeled for big rockfish. About 10:30, I got a photo text from him with one about 48 inches long. Wes is my only fishing buddy that I automatically add to whatever he tells me. I have a few that I will mentally subtract from their lengths/weights until the fish is officially weighed but not Wes. So I knew he had a big one. It was the only fish he caught. He ran in and picked up his wife, Amy, for a Christmas Eve trip to the Elizabeth River to try and catch her first ever citation fish (Wes needs no sleep). They stopped at Wilcox’s on the way and weighed Wes’ rockfish. It weighed in at 52 pounds 5 ounces and they measured it at 50 inches long.

Wes and Amy had a great day catching speckled trout. They caught about 36 trout including some in the 23 and 7/8 inch range that Wes would not call a citation. Amy finally got one that made a “Wes” measurement of 25.5 inches long. It weighed close to 6 pounds on the boat’s digital scale. Wes caught one at 25.75 inches long. They released them all.