Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

We ran over to the buoy 13 area yesterday afternoon. Caught 4 black drum on chowder clams. Came back in before the thunderstorms. The other photo is from this past Monday. I was at the buoy 10 area and saw a dark mass in the water. I went over to it to see what had those bunker all bunched up. It was not bunker. I grabbed my camera instead of a fishing rod. Should have grabbed the rod as none of the shots turned out any better than this one but you can see what they were. It appeared tht these coastal migrants were migrating. This school of stripers did not seem to mind me very much. Just ignored the boat and steadily continued to make there way out of the bay.

We fished for red drum at Fisherman’s Island again yesterday evening. I was in Charles Southall’s Albemarle. The photo of his boat was from a couple of weeks ago when I was fishing in Tricia’s boat. You can see the bait we were using. Wes Blow was in his boat to one side of us. The yellow Regulator is Capt. Rick Wineman. There was plenty of room between Wes and us and I suggested that to Rick after I saw his boat reach vertical a couple of times. They seemed perfectly content over there (the nuts). Then they started catching drum. They called over with 3 hooked up and we started thinking about joining them in the breakers. Luckily, we then hooked up ourselves. We lost that one but it made it easy to stay where we were. We fished until it started to rain and then headed in. The drum were running large. We caught 6 and only one was under 50 inches long. Rick ended up catching 5 reds and Wes 2. We all lost a number of fish. One of our anglers was very new to this (Charles’ daughter’s boyfriend). You never know how that is going to work out but the kid must be doing OK because Charles was nice to him after he knocked the conventional reel into free spool, while fighting his first drum, resulting in a hopeless backlash. He even held his cool when his second drum resulted in Charles’ brand-new Bishop’s custom rod/reel jigging set up going overboard. The boyfriend felt so bad that he wanted to jump over and try and get it (in the dark, where the sharks live). I thought Charles might let him but I guess that he does not want his daughter mad at him so he kept the kid in the boat. When we were clearing the rods to go home, I felt something heaving as I was cranking in the last rod. Up came the hook snagged on the multi-colored braided line of Charles’ rig. It was the best catch of the night as we got his rod back. We had another interesting event when Jody Linthicum , in Rick’s boat, hooked into something big. He thinks bigger than a drum. It ran towards us and he thought broke off. When he was cranking in, his line got snagged on something. They thought that they had our anchor line. At the same time, Hunter Southall was trying to land a big drum. We could see the fish, but Hunter could not get it to the boat. Turns out, Hunter and Jody were playing tug-of-war. Jody finally let Hunter win. Jody got his rig back with a broken hook. His line just freed itself as we were netting the fish so we never saw exactly how they were hooked together. Hunter had the fish hooked in the mouth.

Capt. Jerry Thrash

Queens Creek Outfitters

Patriot Charters

804-725-3889

www.queenscreek.com

Jerry@queenscreek.com

Fishing Report 5.3.11

Small to medium Croaker are available in the creek from docks on bloodworms and squid.

Regarding Flounder, when the winds allowed, anglers venturing across the bay have been disappointed. A few keeper flounder showed up on the western side around Gwynn Island this weekend

We registered our first citation Speckled trout today. It measured 24.25 inches and was caught in the North river on peeler crab on 4/30 by Michael Hudgins of Cobbs Creek. He also had a second keeper speck.

Jared Given of Hayes got this 19 lbs 12 oz bird recently in Middlesex county

Curt Jones of Gloucester scored this 22 lbs 8 oz bird recently in Middlesex county

Tight Lines,

Jerry

My hat made it into Salt Water Sportsman magazine. In the May issue, George Poveromo has an article starting on page 20, “New Take On Jigging Tackle”. The lead photograph for the article features my hat. That is me in the photo though you cannot see my face. The “IGFA” stands out well though. I think that the actual photographer was Capt. Jorj Head. George starts his article by describing an amberjack jigging trip we made to the South Tower for his TV show. We wore sponsors clothing for the TV cameras but I got to pick my own hat. As an IGFA Representative I chose an IGFA hat to help promote them. George’s article is very informative about jigging rods but I think the best thing is the hat photo. There are other things in the photo like a boat, jigging tackle, a fish, and George Poveromo himself but I’m sure that it was the hat that sold the shot.

Dr. Ken Neill, III
IGFA Representative
www.igfa.org
www.pswsfa.com
www.vbsf-hookedup.net/healthygrin/

Yesterday, we went out and tried for red drum is Charles Southall’s boat. Wes Blow was supposed to be fishing with us. He has been struggling with an electronics issue and wanted to go in his own boat to check it out (electronics are fixed). We had an issue. Something about catching a wave and seeing if an Albemarle can be used as a surfboard (it can). The boat and the people on board survived but the anchor was left on the bar. Our fishing day was done before we got our first bait in the water. All things considered, we were happy with that and headed in. Wes and Keith Blackburn kept fishing. As the day went on, and Wes kept texting me photos of big red drum, I became less happy.

We really like Wes, he is a great fishing buddy. We were happy he was catching but irritated we were not there also. By his 4th fish, we were thinking violence.

Today, I hopped in Tricia’s boat and ran back over to Fisherman’s Island. I’m feeling better now. Fought two reds. The hooked pulled on one. Caught (and released) the second, a 48-inch fish.

Dr. Ken Neill, III
IGFA Representative
www.igfa.org
www.pswsfa.com
www.vbsf-hookedup.net/healthygrin/

Report from Capt. Jorj Head: I took Scott Seale and his 7 year old son Jacob turkey hunting with Hayden and I Saturday morning for opening day of turkey season. They called in two big gobblers and Jacob and Scott each shot one. Jacobs turkey had a 10.5 inch beard and weighed about 18 lbs and Scotts had a 10 inch beard and weighed a little over 19 pounds. It was Jacobs first turkey ever. Jacob got an 8 point buck and a doe last deer season. Pretty good for a 7 year old.

We fished the Triangle Reef area yesterday. We hit 5 different wrecks. We ended up catching a total of 25 tautog. Most were smaller fish. We did have a couple in the 9-pound class. Both were tagged and released. In addition to the togs, we caught some nice sea bass, 3-4 pounds, that were released due to the closure. We are fishing on tautog, a species supposed to be in trouble, because sea bass, a recovered species, is closed. We also caught 6 nice cod. That is, nice to us cod. I expect they are small to anglers to our north. Pretty day out there. Next weekend, we will leave the tog alone and start hitting the Eastern Shore surf for big red drum. Three of the togs we caught already had tags in them.

We ran back out to the Triangle Wrecks. Little bumpy early then calmed down nicely. Cunners were plentiful…the pesky things. We ended up catching 22 tautog. No big ones today. Largest was 21-22 inches long. We caught two togs that already had tags in them. Blue crab and clam for bait. Cunners really like clam.

Bernie yesterday. South of the Point. No reports of fish north. From the Point on south. That is what they caught, a 170 pound bluefin and a yellowfin.

Ric’s Billfish: www.saltwatersportsman.com/article/Gear-and-Techniques/Fishing-Circle-Hooks-Offshore 

Venezuela: http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/storyFeb11-kn-LaGuairabank.htm

Big Red: http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/StoryMar11-KenNeil-BigRed.pdf

Virginia Wahoo: http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/storyoct10-kenneill-vawahoo.htm  

Bluefish with Tricia on the cover: http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/Nov10AnglerRED1.pdf