Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

www.chesapeake-angler.com/amglersept2012web.pdf

CHUMLINE AUGUST 2012

I ran over to the Eastern Shore this morning to fish for tarpon, watching the meteor shower on the way over. Got set up at sunrise and had my first bite soon after. I had a tarpon jumping around at the end of my line. It took most of my line so I had to come off the anchor. The thing towed my boat around for a while before letting me get a hold of it. Being my first Virginia tarpon, I brought it in the boat for a measurement and a couple of photos (actually a couple thousand as the Go Pro was taking photos every 2 seconds throughout the entire fight). I released the fish, retrieved my anchor and ran back home. I made it back before any of my family had gotten out of bed. This Virginia tarpon fishing is easy. That is what I thought 3 years ago when I first tried for a tarpon in Virginia. Charles Southall and I chartered Capt. Blake Hayden, www.righttidecharters.com . I had one hooked up first thing that morning also. That one got away as did the one Charles had jumping later that same day. That was OK, with getting bites like that; we would just catch one the next trip. Boy was I wrong. Three years of trying all kinds of things, even spending all night over there with a swordfish light and chunking bunker and butterfish in between swatting bugs and I finally catch one this morning fishing just the way Capt. Hayden taught us. Thanks Blake.

Another fishing report concerns another of our area’s best fishing guides, Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004. The Chesapeake Bay Cobia Cup was held this past weekend. Fresh off his win of the Wallace’s Bait and Tackle Flounder Tournament, Jorj followed it up by taking first place in the cobia cup and winning the big-fish Calcutta. Jorj was back at it again today. When I spoke to him, they had already caught 10 cobia today. I don’t know what the final count was yet.

www.chesapeake-angler.com/story-KN-A12-CobiaTime.htm

We ran up to the Washington Canyon to get in on that white marlin bite that is going great guns. We got into the bite alright. They would come in and be pulling on both teasers, whacking the dredge, and in general destroying the spread. No real signs of fish. I did see one cutter and one free jumper but for the most part a whole bunch of nothing and then a pack would show up and tear things up. In spite of our best efforts to make sure that no marlin made it to the boat, we managed to catch 5. We broke them off, pulled them off, jumped them off, and just plain missed them. Some of the better boats had over 20 and there have been a couple of 30 plus catches already this month. It should be an amazing week for the White Marlin Open.

We had one drop-back mishap on a flat line that resulted in a “kapow!” as the line snapped. Everyone was looking at that reel while the other flat line was going off and I yelled down asking if anyone wanted to get that fish? Well, Deven Simmerman got on it with the fish jumping way back there. We cleared everything and went after it and got his line back. Got the leader and called it a catch but…as we got the rest of the leader up, there was just a bare hook, tangled in the line that had broken. So here we go, “Old Man and the Sea” style, Wes Blow and Stan Simmerman start hand-lining the marlin. They do pretty well for a while, gaining line but letting the fish run at times. They were winning the battle until someone got the idea of splicing the line back to the reel so they could fight the fish with the rod. Good idea, not so good execution. The hook popped out during the knot tying process. Deven never did catch a marlin though he had his shots. Everyone else on board caught one. I lost three fish before finally catching one; it was one of those days.

We had pop-up satellite tags for roundscale spearfish but I have determined that the best way to make sure that you will not see a roundscale is to have a tag ready to stick in it. We do not normally bring billfish in the boat but on this trip we had our own marlin vampire onboard. Lela Schlenker is one of Dr. John Graves’ graduate students. One of the things she is working on is billfish blood chemistry. She is her own walking science lab with a 12-volt powered centrifuge, syringes, canisters of liquid nitrogen and whatever else any self-respecting mad scientist should have. Her procedure is to bill the fish and bring it on board, collect blood and tissue samples, and release the fish. Some of the fish are fitted with pop-up tags. I’m not sure how she is going to deal with the larger billfish.

Wes Blow’s white marlin was his 50th citation fish qualifying him for Master Angler II and it is his 6th different citation for the year earning him another Expert Angler Award.

If you are interested in helping out with some of this research, contact Dr. John Graves at: graves@vims.edu . He has Lela working on billfish blood chemistry, Emily doing a comparative study of roundscale spearfish and white marlin, and Ben working with bluefin tuna. They have all fished with me and all are super nice, helpful, don’t get in the way, and I have not managed to make any of them seasick yet (I have made some of his students miserable in the past but not this bunch). They are always looking for boats to ride along on and even if you do not have room for a student passenger you can still help by doing things like keeping a log of your billfish catches (white marlin vs roundscale), collecting finlets for DNA analysis and other things to help the scientists out.

The Peninsula Salt Water Sport Fisherman’s Association conducts a Youth and Ladies Tournament each year. Targeted species are croaker and flounder. There is no entry fee (one of the many things supported by the Flounder Bowl). It is held during the summertime, when the kids are out of school, and is held over a couple of weeks to give us the best opportunity for calm fishing conditions. This year’s tournament ended this past Sunday with a free cookout and awards presentation at Dare Marina. Prizes were $100, $50, and $25 for 1st 2nd and 3rd in each category.

Ladies Flounder

1st: Rachel Nelson: 5 pounds 3 ounces

2nd: Annette Wineman: 2 pounds 1 ounce

Ladies Croaker

1st: Wendy Elford: 15.8 ounces

2nd: Rachel Nelson: 15.5 ounces

3rd: Judy Hudgins: 8 ounces

Youth Flounder

1st: Spencer Elford: 5 pounds 8 ounces

2nd: Hayden Head: 4 pounds 6 ounces

3rd: Deven Simmerman: 4 pounds

Youth Croaker

1st: Hanna Elford: 1 pound 10 ounces

2nd: Madison Hunt: 9 ounces

3rd: Spencer Elford: 6 ounces

In related tournament news, Wallace’s Bait and Tackle Flounder Frenzy Tournament was this past Saturday. Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, fished it. With the Youth and Ladies Tournament in progress, Jorj invited our club Secretary, Rachel Nelson, and youth, Spencer Elford, to be part of his tournament crew. It turned out to be a good decision as their 15.51 pound, 3-fish stringer, was good enough to win 1st place.

We fished a couple of inshore wrecks off of Virginia Beach yesterday. We came in with the fish box full. The catch included 12 flounder from 3 to 6 pounds, a limit of 32 spadefish of various sizes with many others released, a whole bunch of gray triggerfish (4 weighed for citations), a decent catch of sea bass, small jacks of various species, bluefish, conger eels and some very impressive oyster toads.

The PSWSFA’s Youth and Ladies Flounder and Croaker Tournament ends today with a cookout at Dare Marina this evening. The youngsters we had fishing with us each caught flounder to enter into this event.

Mid-Atlantic 500K – Summer 2012

Chumline July 2012

www.outdoorhub.com/news/igfa-rep-catches-virginia-state-record-tautog/