Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Warm weather likely to keep large rockfish at bay
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
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The Wild Life blog
Thanksgiving traditionally has coincided with the peak season for roping giant striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay.
Unless something drastic happens, that's one Thanksgiving tradition that won't be happening this year.
Warm weather along the coast has delayed the annual southern migration of the big fish from their summering grounds off New England.
So while the bay is brimming with smallish rockfish, as many coastal anglers call them, the big fish just aren't around yet.
"The water temperature is at least in the upper 50s," said Claude Bain, who as the director of the state-run Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament keeps tabs on trophy fish catches. "That is too high, at least for this time of year."
In a normal year, Bain said, big stripers typically start showing up around Halloween. The fall season's first citation didn't come until last week, for a fish caught out of Reedville.
This season's regulations allow anglers to keep two stripers, with a protected slot limit of 28 to 34 inches. Both fish may be between 18 and 28 inches, but only one fish may be longer than 34 inches.
Anglers are picking up plenty of fish below the slot limit, as well as good numbers of slot fish that must be released.
Bain said he expects the trophy fishing to pick up in the coming days. A cold front is expected to hit the region later this week, and that could drive some fish into Virginia waters.
"This weekend we might see a bunch of those fish around," Bain said. "Once you get a good north wind and some cold water it doesn't take long."
The first bunch of big stripers probably isn't too far away. Bain said he has heard reports of lots of gannets off the beaches around Assateague. Those sea birds often follow schools of big bait fish -- just like large stripers.
The same weather patterns that have pushed striper fishing behind schedule have helped other fisheries remain strong later than normal.
Speckled trout action has been excellent in Lynnhaven and Rudee inlets in Virginia Beach. Rudee has also been producing good action for small red drum, or puppy drum as they're often called.
Fishermen venturing off the coast have been pulling in some big flounder from around wrecks 10 to 20 miles offshore, and the structures also have been producing some nice catches of black sea bass.
Hordes of big bluefish also are hanging around the wrecks, which is great if you're into battling those tough critters on light tackle, but not so great if you're trying to reel in flounder or sea bass.
"When the party boats go out and start catching a bunch of sea bass heads, you know the bluefish are around," Bain said of the vicious predators. "They can get to be a nuisance."
CWD sample collection hits bump
A Department of Game and Inland Fisheries push to collect deer for chronic wasting disease testing fell short Saturday. Ironically, the success of another department program was largely to blame.
Plenty of hunters killed deer in the four-county area where the department is focusing its testing efforts. But while department biologists waited at designated checking stations, most hunters called in their deer using the department's "Got Game" telephone checking system.
Hunters called in 4,520 deer Saturday, by far the largest number checked in a single day yet this season. Hunters in Clarke, Frederick, Loudoun and Shenandoah -- the primary CWD testing area -- accounted for 431 of those deer.
Monday the department, which needs about 100 more deer from those counties, sent out a press release urging hunters in those counties to bring deer to several check stations this coming Saturday, the opening day of general firearms season in Western Virginia.
Of the deer called in Saturday, 4,251 were killed with muzzleloaders. The day's total represented a substantial jump over the number of calls on last year's western muzzleloader opener, when 3,752 deer were checked in using the system.
Officials expect participation in the phone system to grow this season -- it was about 45 percent last year, the program's first -- so that jump doesn't necessarily mean more deer were killed Saturday than a year ago.
Of the deer checked Saturday, 1,053 were females, 231 were male fawns and 3,236 were antlered males, the largest of which was a 14-pointer.
