Thursday, January 13, 2005
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Saltwater tournament second best ever
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Along about this time last year, Claude Bain, director of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament, had no inkling that the 2004 season would bring an unprecedented explosion of catches of trophy-size spot. That prospect just didn’t show up in his crystal ball or in the biological data on the species.
The spot is a panfish of the bay and ocean’s edge, the champion of the pier and party boat crowd. You might need a $30,000 boat to catch striped bass and one costing ten times that to go after marlin, but spot you can catch in a beat-up dingy maneuvered with a wooden paddle.
And that’s just what anglers did the past season, catch spot by the thousands -- big spot.
This week, Bain announced the results of the state-sponsored saltwater tournament. The total citation count was 7,224, the second best in the 47-year history of the contest. Some 2,078 of the citations, right at 30 percent, were for spot that weighed one-pound or more. That’s the best since 1973 when the spot count was 1,045.
“And that was just a drop in the bucket,” Bain said of last year’s total. “A lot of anglers came in and said, ‘I caught 25 spot and they all were citations, but I only weighed one’ ” that was registered.
Will this year see a repeat of the cascade of spot citations? Probably not. At least Bain hopes not. In fact, his citation committee has lifted the minimum size for a spot citation from 1 pound to 1 pound, 2 ounces. Even if that weight had been in place last season, the count still would have been in the 900s he estimated.
The committee debated on whether or not to raise the minimum, Bain said. The number of big fish could fall as rapidly as it rose. “We don’t really know,” Bain said.
One thing for certain, “You can’t run a trophy program if that many people catch that many fish of that size,” he said. “They are not trophies anymore. So you have to do something.”
The 2004 citation count for the 34 eligible species in the tournament was the second best in the 47-year history of the contest. The record occurred in 2001when 8,299 were registered.
“That was a year when both offshore and inshore fishing were really good,” said Bain. The flounder count in 2001 hit nearly 1,200, and there were impressive catches of amberjack, cobia, spadefish, spot, striped bass, tuna and white marlin.
The 2004 season saw excellent catches of flounder. The 761 count was the seventh best on record, and the most since the minimum qualifying weight was raised to 7 pounds. Good numbers of flounder were caught in the fall, when the species was migrating toward its wintering grounds.
Other species that posted a high citation count were striped bass, 677; red drum, 670; black drum, 453; spadefish, 433; tautog, 325 and white marlin, 314.
Many of the big striped bass traditionally are taken in January, but the citation count this winter appears to be lagging behind last year, Bain said.
“It is kind of baffling as to why,” he said. The water temperature is wonderful; there is a lot of bait out there. But fish just don’t seem to be as prevalent as they were last year. The fishing has been good, not great.”
Offshore fishing improved last year; but then, most anything would have been better than the 2003 season when cold-water patterns led to one of the poorest billfish years on record.
This time last year, predictions were that there would be another outstanding sea bass year. The 2003 season had seen the discovery of a January to March offshore/deep-water fishery, and the odds were that anglers would build on that. It didn’t happen. Just as the winter fishery appeared to be taking off, it stalled. Inshore catches also lagged. Citations declined by 43 percent. “No one knows exactly why,” said Bain.
The tournament has posted three of its top citation counts the past four seasons, even through minimum size and length requirements have been pushing upward. Is the fishing getting that much better?
Maybe in some instances. Striped bass would be a prime example. But increasing citations also could be tied to the fact that anglers now have more modern ways of getting the word out when a species is biting. What’s more, there have been improvements in boats and tackle.
“There’s also a tremendous organized education effort in recreation fishing, including seminars and shows and things like that,” Bain said. “The ability to learn what you need to learn to become a good fisherman in order to target various species of fish is easier to get now than it used to be.”
An example, he said, is sheepshead. This species had 262 citations, 59 percent more than the previous year. Often overlooked, the sheepshead suddenly is being targeted by anglers who know how to catch this structure-holding fish. The same could be said of spadefish just a half-dozen years ago.
TOURNAMENT FINALS
AMBERJACK: 57 release entries, down 84 percent from previous year.
BLACK DRUM: Top weight 95 pounds, caught by Joseph Roub, Baltimore, Md., at Hog Island Bay, 453 citations entered, down 52 percent from previous year.
BLUEFISH: 51 release entries, up 16 percent.
COBIA: 103 pounds, 8 ounces, Vince Ainsley, Aylett, lower-western Chesapeake Bay, 122 entries, down 61 percent.
CREVALLE JACK: 7 release entries, up 75 percent.
CROAKER: 5 pounds, Jarvis Taylor, Richmond, lower York River, 158 entries, down 19 percent.
DOLPHIN: 50 pounds, Jereme Wilson, Chesapeake, off Virginia Beach, 26 entries, down 54 percent.
FALSE ALBACORE: 34 release entries, up 143 percent.
FLOUNDER: 14 pounds, 4 ounces, Betty Smith, Chesapeake, lower-eastern Chesapeake Bay, 761 entries, up 1 percent.
GRAY TRIGGERFISH: 5 pounds, Mike Barboza, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach, 19 entries, up 217 percent.
GRAY TROUT: 12 pounds, 12 ounces, Greg Thayer, Gloucester, upper-eastern Chesapeake Bay, 102 entries, down 60 percent.
KING MACKEREL: 52 pounds, Cecil Smith, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach, 3 entries, up 50 percent.
KINGFISH: 1 pound, 14 ounce, Bobby Smith, Portsmouth, lower-western Chesapeake Bay, 14 entries, up 27 percent.
MARLIN, BLUE: 66 release entries, up 175 percent.
MARLIN, WHITE: 314 release entries, up 199 percent.
POMPANO: 3 pounds, 6 ounces, Arlon Stith, Petersburg, lower James River, 10 entries, down 73 percent.
RED DRUM: 670 release entries, down 17 percent.
SAILFISH: 4 release entries, up 300 percent.
SEA BASS: 6 pounds, 14 ounces, Mark Fueller, Rio Grande, N.J., off Virginia Beach, 157 entries, down 43 percent.
SHARK: 43 entries, down 2 percent.
SHEEPHEAD: 19 pounds, 3 ounces, state record, Jeff Hutton, Virginia Beach, lower eastern Chesapeake Bay, 262 entries, up 59 percent.
SPADEFISH: 13 pounds, 10 ounces, Jake Mapp, Franktown, upper-eastern Chesapeake Bay, 433 entries, down 53 percent.
SPANISH MACKEREL: 6 pounds, 6 ounces, Patrick Quisenberry, Mechanicsville, upper-western Chesapeake Bay, 4 entries, no change.
SPEARFISH: 1 entry, down 50 percent.
SPECKLED TROUT: 13 pounds, 12 ounces, Walter Kellum, Hayes, Mobajack Bay, 204 entries, up 176 percent.
SPOT: 1 pound, 10 ounces, Wilson Haynes, Wake, lower Rappahannock River, 2078 entries, up 203 percent.
STRIPED BASS: 63-pound state record, Carolyn Brown, Virginia Beach, off the Virginia Coast, 677 entries, up 20 percent.
SWORDFISH: No entries.
TARPON: 6 release entries, down 70 percent.
TAUTOG: 22 pounds, 9 ounces, Julie Ball, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach, 325 entries, down 1 percent.
TUNA (BLUEFIN): 180 pounds, 4 ounces, Okey Bolling, Pasadena, Md. off Eastern Shore, 43 entries, down 68 percent.
TUNA (OTHER): 241 pounds, Mike Wolf, Sterling, off Virginia Beach, 45 entries, up 650 percent.
WAHOO: 107 pounds, Chris Miles, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach, 75 entries, up 67 percent.
