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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Record season for saltwater striper anglers

By Bill Cochran

Last January, saltwater anglers were asking, “Can the striped bass fishing get any better?”

That month produced 458 striper citations in the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament, which was 41 percent of the year’s total.

“The January fishery was fueled by [an] unseasonable mild winter and availability of large fish near the mouth of the [Chesapeake] Bay and within a short run from Rudee Inlet" in Virginia Beach, said Lewis Gillingham, the tournament director.

Come December, it got even better. Last month 736 citation striped bass were registered in the tournament, fish that were at least 40 pounds or 44 inches. That was 53 percent of the total.

“The best concentrations of the largest fish were located conveniently in Chesapeake Bay off Cape Charles and around the High Level Bridge of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel,” Gillingham said.

The total striper count for the tournament year was 1,400, the highest in the program’s 50-year history. The next best year was 2006, when the count was 1,130.

The size of the fish was staggering. Some 121 weighed 50 pounds or more. Thirty-six weighed 55 pounds or more and 10 weighed above 60 pounds.

I didn’t get anything that big, but I have caught more big striper this winter than any time in my 40 years of striper fishing.

Striped bass accounted for nearly one-quarter of all the fish entered in the 2007 tournament, which registered 6,164 trophies among its 35 eligible species. This was a substantial increase from the 2006 level of 5,308 and was the sixth highest total in tournament history.

The early going of 2008 has continued to be productive for striper anglers, but probably not on par with last January’s record pace. For one thing, anglers and fish have had to deal with some extremely cold weather. There has been a lot of wind, too.

Whether the recent artic blasts sent the striper packing is yet to be determined, but through mid-January there have been plenty of fish even in the Chesapeake Bay where the season has closed but catch-and-release can be enjoyed. Last Friday, Dr. Julie Ball and five friends fished the High Rise section of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and released 19 stripers, the smallest a hefty 37 inches. One of Ball’s fish measured 51 inches.

Here are additional highlights of the 2007 tournament:

>It was a good year for red drum, which was the runner-up to striped bass in the citation count, with 656 fish registered or 11 percent of the tournament’s total. That was the fifth best number of red drum citations in the tournament history.

>There were 667 founder citations, which may sound impressive, but the figure represents a substantial decrease from the 860 of 2006.

>Black drum citations represented 633 citations, the second highest number since 1975. Some 97 percent were release citations.

>Speckled trout made a late-season showing when a bunch of them topping 5 pounds were caught in November and December. The total came to 476, a number that eclipsed the old record set in 1999. The record was established even through trout angling was generally poor on the east and west sides of the Eastern Shore. Catches have continued into January.

>Virginia isn’t known as a great king mackerel state, but last year was special with 56 citations, second only to the 64 registered in 1980. Among the catches was a 63-pound, 1-ounce state record.

>The tournament had its disappointments. The 14 spot citations represented what Gillingham called “an inexplicable nosedive.” Only two gray trout citations were recorded, a species that once provided abundant action.

>Blueline tilefish, golden tilefish and snowy grouper, species that most anglers had never herd of, suddenly were in the spotlight with state records set then broken numerous times by a handful of anglers who developed this fishery. There were three grouper records, all taken aboard the same boat, “Healthy Grin,” skippered by Ken Neil.

>Other records that were special include an amazing 8-pound, 11-ounce croaker and a hefty 573-pound bluefin tuna.

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