Thursday, January 18, 2007
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: 2006 was a record year for saltwater stripers in late-season blitz
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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It was one of those rare occasions when everything -- the temperatures, the wind, the baitfish, the fish, the birds -- came together perfectly for one of the most memorable striped bass blitzes in the lower Chesapeake Bay.
It “may have been the best week of trophy striper angling ever witnessed by Virginia anglers,” said Lewis Gillingham, who for years has compiled a fishing report for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
It started just before Christmas and headed toward New Year’s Day. Big stripers flooded the lower Chesapeake Bay where they hammering baitfish from Cape Charles to the ocean. Some of the action was in the ocean itself, close in enough that anglers could read the names on the Virginia Beach high-rises.
Many fishermen were reeling in jumbo stripers while using live eels under floats from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, northward past Kiptopeke to Cape Charles. Others were scoring while trolling. Still others were bowing their rods while casting beneath flocks of frenzied birds. The pilings, tubes and rock islands of the bridge-tunnel were other places to score.
At times, the striped bass were joined by big bluefish and the combination attracted clouds of diving birds at Cape Henry. You had to wonder how many would-be anglers nearly ran off Lynnhaven Bridge while observing the fracas.
Chris and Mark Snook, at Chris’ Bait and Tackle shop, on U.S. 13 north of the bridge-tunnel, wrote more than 200 striper citations the final two weeks of December. “Awesome” was the word Mark used to describe the action. One angler weighed a 63-pound striper, along with a 51- and 49-pounder. Chris took enough time off to catch a 42-pound, 8-ounce trophy.
Fly fisherman Harry Huelsbeck of Norfolk caught a 43-pound, 2-ounce striper that sucked in his Clouser fly. The fish is a pending world record in the 20-pound tipped class.
A 51-pound striper won the Striped Bass World Championship for William Lewis of Cape Charles. Lewis hardly was in a class by himself.
When the results of the 2006 Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament were tallied there were 74 stripers weighing 50 pounds or more. That was a record, according to tournament director Claude Bain. Also a record for the 49-year old tournament was the total striper citation count of 1,098 fish. Some 700 of them came in December. Stripers must be 40 pounds or 44 inches to gain citation status, which means they are so big you drag their tails and waddle under their weight.
Another bunch of fish was registered January into early March of 2006, including a 68-pound, 1-ounce state record for Clay Armstrong of Mechanicsville. The fish was taken in the Atlantic off False Cape.
With excellent fishing on both ends of the season, striped bass led all other fish in the 34-species tournament, accounting for 21 percent of the contest’s 5,290 citations.
You didn’t have to have saltwater in your veins to share in the late-season blitz. Whitney Pendleton, 17, from Bedford County, landed stripers out of the Chesapeake Bay that weighed 45 pounds and 53.8 pounds while fishing with her dad, Robert. Wes Davis of Salem trolled up catches from the ocean that weighed 49.2 and 42.5 pounds.
The striper action was so dramatic in 2006 that it is easy to overlook what happened with other species in the saltwater tournament.
Meriting attention was the flounder season, which accounted for 895 citations, the fifth highest number ever. That represented 17 percent of all citations. Many of these fish were huge, 78 of them better than 10 pounds, the most that size for any year in tournament history.
Two basic things are happening. The flounder population has been rebuilding and anglers are learning to target the biggest fish away from the traditional fishing grounds. The payoff has come for anglers using live spot as bait around the bridge-tunnel.
The citation count for red drum was down from the previous year, but still the fifth highest ever. Some 578 red drum citations were registered. Kevin Crum landed seven springtime citations from the barrier islands of the Eastern Shore, five of them on the same day, with some help from his father-in-law.
Following outstanding spring fishing, the fall run proved to be a dud, particularly in the Sandbridge area where catches have been high in the past. “I have never fished so hard with so little results,” said Crum. He blamed it on “dramatic weather patterns.”
At Sandbridge, lots of the drum stayed offshore, Bain said. Had the fall run been productive, the red drum take for 2006 would have soared near record status.
CHECK THIS WEEK’S Cochran Field Reports for the final tally of the saltwater tournament standings and for Dr. Julie Ball’s jump on the 2007 season.
