Thursday, December 03, 2009
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Chesapeake Bay serving up stripers on the rocks
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Bill Cochran with "on the rocks" striped bass.
On the south side of the Fourth Island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a line of rocks jet out into the churning water like giant sharks’ teeth, ready to gash the bottom out of the boat of the unwary anglers.
This is where we found the stripers one recent morning, within inches of the rocks, verifying why many oldtimers still call this species “rockfish.”
The outgoing tide was strong enough to draw frothy water across the rocks, and you had to figure there were frantic pods of baitfish hugging the structure knowing they were in danger of being picked off one-by-one by hungry predators.
The night before, we had driven north across the 17-mile bridge-tunnel, which links Virginia Beach to the Eastern Shore. We had spotted plenty of boats and birds working the water in the eerie glow of the bridge-tunnel’s trail of lights.
The next morning, following a long run from Kiptopeke, we were the second boat to reach the south end of the Fourth Island just after daylight. More would come.
The first boat worked the east side of the rock line while we worked the west side. Our lures crashed the water within feet of each others. It was as if we were in a water polo match and the rocks were the net.
The location didn’t seem to matter. Strikes were abundant and aggressive on both sides. One fish we caught completely swallowed our 6-inch lure. It was the best fishing I’d encountered here for years.
We were throwing Wind-Cheater lures (See Cochran Field Reports), which are floating-diving plugs designed to muscle through the breezes of a saltwater environment when you cast them and come back wobbling like a wounded baitfish.
Before long, the boat on the other side of the rocks nosed over to our side, maybe thinking we were catching more fish. Than another boat appeared, and still another and just after daylight they were flocking in from the north and south.
When stripers blitz along the bridge-tunnel, you are apt to see all kinds of boats, from kayaks to sportfishing craft designed for long-hauls to the marlin fishing grounds. Catching a striper aboard one of sportfishing giants is a bit like reeling a flopping fish up the side of a three-story building. It is one of the few times I feel sorry for the guy who has a million dollar boat. We were fishing from our center-console, 18-foot Parker.
The competition here isn’t just man against fish, but man against man as you try to guard your fishing spot from an intruder when the striper you have hooked is intent on pulling you away from it.
Many of the fish caught here in November are school-size, meaning they are the young residents of the Bay. But we also were catching good numbers of fish that were a bracket larger, approaching 30 inches. The sea lice on them revealed they were ocean fish that had turned into the Bay, perhaps drawn there by homing instincts and the baitfish in the rocks.
Early morning angler bows rod on striped bass.
They fought like crazy, their muscles honed by long journeys up and down the coast and the relentless press of tides. When you held one in your hands, still full of fight, you had to wonder where it had been, how many hundreds of miles it might have traveled, how many people and predators and other dangers it had alluded. Think too much along those lines and you’d never keep one.
Still bigger fish, the cows, the old females, some weighing 50-plus pounds, will arrive in December and hang around the Virginia Coast through January. Many of these will be caught by trollers and bait fishermen using live eels.
A few eel fishermen already have arrived. They are the ones you see at the dock with fishing rods bearing large, brightly colored floats, making it appear that their boat has been decorated for Christmas. They head away from the rocks to deeper, quieter haunts where many of the big fish are found.
It is pure drama to catch 30-to 60-pound stripers, but I believe you can make a strong case for it being more fun to tangle with smaller fish on light tackle amid the rocks.
