Healthy Grin Sport Fishing

Photos on pages 24 and 25

Fish Monster Magazine

Sport Fishing Magazine is sponsoring a new award called “Making A Difference”. These awards will be presented to individuals who are making a positive difference in recreational saltwater fishing. You can see the nominees for the 2011 awards at: www.sportfishingmag.com/makingadifference/nominees . All of these individuals are deserving of the awards but only 5 will be chosen. You get to help choose who these 5 will be by voting betwen now and June 1. You can also nominate individuals to be considered for awards in 2012.

Three that I nominated:

Dr. Robert Allen: www.sportfishingmag.com/makingadifference/nominees/dr-robert-allen

Dr. John Graves: www.sportfishingmag.com/makingadifference/nominees/dr-john-graves

Dr. Guy Harvey: www.sportfishingmag.com/makingadifference/nominees/dr-guy-harvey

For more information: www.sportfishingmag.com/makingadifference

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

We left the stripers alone and headed out to the Triangle Reef area. Never saw another boat all day. We caught togs, keeper-size, no monsters. We caught 18 of the critters. Clam and frozen blue crab for bait. Back at Inlet Station Marina, the boats that ran south had a very good day. Multiple citation rockfish weighed in to 55 pounds. We did not see any signs of rockfish offshore. We did have some marks that could have been Boston mackeral. Did not have stuff ready to try for them. Nice, calm day on the ocean.

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

January issue of Sport Fishing. Lead photo of the article starting on page 32 about boat terminology. I took the photo while running in from a day fishing off of Venezuela:

Sport Fishing is sponsoring “Making A Difference” awards:

www.sportfishingmag.com/article.jsp?ID=1000086446

Sport Fishing is running a column, “From The Top”. In this section, the head of NOAA Fisheries, Eric Schwaab, answers questions submitted by readers. This is a chance to ask about all of the federal fishery management decisions we talk about here. Email your questions for Eric Schwaab to editor@sportfishingmag.com  . To get it going, the editor asked me to come up with some questions. In the February issue, on page 18, Eric responds to my question about striped bass and the EEZ.

Ric Burnley has an article in the February issue of SaltWater Sportsman magazine on page 57. It is about marlin fishing in the mid-Atlantic in today’s circle-hook world. “Ken Neill’s Mixed Spread” is at the top of page 58. Something just seems wrong about that. The article without some of the images in the magazine: www.saltwatersportsman.com/article/Gear-and-Techniques/Fishing-Circle-Hooks-Offshore/1

The three-day weekend started out on the Fishing Tidewater radio show where Ric Burnley and myself talked with Don Lancaster about the SaltWater Sportsman Seminar in Virginia Beach this coming Saturday. After leaving the radio station, it was onto the water.

We started out at the Triangle Wrecks, ran down south, and finished up the weekend in the Elizabeth River.

At the Triangle Wrecks, we caught some tautog. We caught 14, keeper-size, no big ones. Down south, we ran into some rockfish right at the end of the day. Speckled trout action was mostly small fish. We caught a bunch with a few “keepers” in the 19-21 inch range. Hunter Southall caught one that measured 26.5 inches, in the 6.5 to 7 pound range. He had never weighed-in a speck and wanted to keep it. His dad said that it was his fish and he could decide what to do with it. Hunter went to put it in the cooler and then had a change of heart and quickly released the fish (before I could get my camera out). Hunter said that fish has no idea how close I was to keeping it. He said he’ll wait for a bigger one for his first weight citation.

We pretty much let everything go this weekend. Four of the tautog were not so lucky as one of our anglers was hungry (not naming any names Danny Forehand).

Saturday we headed out in the bands of snow to fish for rockfish. We ended up about 20 miles south of Rudee where a friend (Larry Lusk) had done really well the day before. They weighed 2 fish over 40 pounds and caught more in that class. Larry also sent me a photo of a whale that was fishing the area with them. We found his whale and plenty of bait but we never found his fish. We caught some but did not get into the class of fish he had.

Sunday, I went speckled trout fishing with Wes Blow. Charles and Hunter Southall were near us in Hunter’s boat. Jody Linthucum was there in his kayak. We caught a lot of trout but they were mostly small. A few nice fish were caught.

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

Ran south out of Rudee Inlet today. The fog was thick. Found fish marks 21 miles from Rudee on the 3-mile-line. First line was hooked up before second line was out. Never stopped all day. Never saw another boat all day. The fog lifted a bit and the birds started working. Followed them around until dark catching fish as soon as a bait hit the water. Ended up right on the beach 24 miles from Rudee. Fish rolling all over the surface, dead bunkers floating, fish grabbing baits right at the transom. The action never slowed down at all. Mixed-sized fish with a lot of fish in the mid-40 inch range. The little radio traffic sounded like boats were doing well from False Cape to Duck.

We decided to spend the last day of the year and the last day of the season, targeting black sea bass. We fished four wrecks and an area or botttom in 50 fathoms. We caught nice sea bass everywhere. We ended up with the fish boxes full of sea bass, mostly in the 3-4 pound range with the largest at 5-8. Sea bass and blueline tiles were mixed at 50 fathoms. We did not spend a lot of time there but did manage to catch bluelines to 11 pounds. We caught a few dogfish but they were not much of a problem. We did not drop any deeper, concentrating on sea bass on the last day of the season. It sounded like the boats dropping deeper were catching more dogfish (as well as golden tilefish and snowy grouper). Beautiful day out there.

Dr. Ken Neill, III
IGFA Representative
[url]www.igfa.org[/url]
[url]www.pswsfa.com[/url]

Sunday, I was at church watching my children perform in the Christmas Pagent. Wes Blow and Charles Southall were in the Elizabeth River, catching speckled trout. They caught and released about 25 speckled trout including a number of citation-sized fish. They kept one fish. It was Charles’ first speckled trout citation and it was his 6th different citation species of the year, earning him another Expert Angler Award. His fish ended up weighing in at 7 pounds 12 ounces.

Monday, we sent Charles back to work (where he belongs) and I went speckled trout fishing with Wes. I was expecting the same kind of day. After about 5 hours without a bite in the cold and wind, I asked Wes, “you guys were just fooling with me, weren’t you?”. He said that there were really speckled trout in this river and that I should have been there yesterday. Right at the end of the day, the fish started to bite. We caught about 12 to 15 fish before it got too dark to see. We let everything go. None were large but I was happy to just be getting some bites. I think that Wes is back out there today, in the cold and the wind (while I am back at work).

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

Charles Southall and Wes Blow fished the Elizabeth River today. They caught about 25 trout with 4 qualifying for citations. Charles’ big one weighed 7.8 pounds on the boat scale.