There isn’t much time to be depressed about summer coming to an end. As the ocean currents begin to bring cooler water down from the north, blue marlin, white marlin and sailfish are just off our coast in big numbers.
Grand Slams are quickly becoming a common occurrence here in Coastal Virginia.
When fishing gets this good, it’s time to cash in those “sick” days.
It’s finally cobia season. Most of the fish we’re seeing are small, but that’s good news if you ask me. That’s the first indicator of things to come. Most of the fish I’m seeing are singles but every now and then, I’ll see a few schooled up.
These two could care-less about the boat. I followed them for 25 minutes, snapping photos and throwing baits. Neither one of them were hungry, but I did manage to pick off a few others.
I’m buried with work. On the one hand, I should be thankful. On the other hand I’m miserable because I have to work. Especially when it’s spring striper season.
Hampton roads is one of the few places that holds stripers pretty much all year. There are always schoolies hiding by the rocks, slot fish in all the area haunts, the goliaths during the winter and some seriously cool shallow water stripers in the spring.
Here’s a 46” spring striper. I think these are my favorite striper to catch because they’re in 5’ of water and clearly visible in the water column. Sight casting is the method of choice and it’s no gimme. On a typical day, you should be able to see ten to twenty schools of fish that contain about 100 to 200. The frustrating thing isn’t finding them, it’s getting them to eat. They only have one thing on their mind… mating. I’m usually not hungry when mating is on my mind, however, I have never missed a meal either.
If you’ve ever caught croaker from a pier, you can’t help but wonder if they’re afraid of heights. They’re so small and probably feel undersized in their world. When hooked and yanked up 30’, I wonder what they’re thinking.
These little guys became shark food. We were fishing for drum, but only caught sharks. The funny thing is, I use to surf next to this pier. Now that I know how many sharks are in the water, I’m not sure I can surf anymore. Not because I’m scared of getting bit, I just don’t want the hassle of possibly getting bit. Getting stitches and missing work is just a head ache.
This is a fairly large needle fish and it was the last fish of the day when we were just crushing the trout on the Eastern Shore.
Getting a good look at this guy sent shivers down my spine. I can’t imagine being eaten alive by this fish. We were using a red jig head with a white curly tail… he hit with so much power and surprised me and my buddy. All I could think about was being a little mullet or shad trying to get out of his mouth.
Aside from his impressive bite, he had an odor that was terrible… stunk the boat up for an hour.
This day was so amazing. The water was crystal clear and you could see the needle fish chasing out baits back to the boat. This was a three species day… trout, stripers and needle fish. (The other two did not stink).
I’m not sure what it is about my boat that attracts porpoises, but I love it. While sight casting for bull red drum last week a school of seven dolphins adopted me for about an hour… they swam with me, played, jumped and just generally hung out.
I’ve been fishing alone so much lately that I loved having company.
The water was dirty today making the drum hard to spot. That didn’t stop me though… While the drum are worth talking about, my favorite shot of the day is this dolphin. I’m over there so much, see so many dolphin and wonder if we’ve seen each other before… in my heart of hearts, I believe we have.
No exciting Hot Ditch report today. In fact, the only thing worth photographing was my skiff sitting at the dock during high tide. I did catch 8 trout. No gators or “golly whoppers”, however I did see several wood ducks land in a batch of woods off the main river.
I didn’t have my 400 lens today so that picture will have to stay in my mind.
The biggest trout was 22” and felt like a blue marlin. For a brief moment, I thought I had a citation on the line, but no such luck.
Spent the day with my good friend and Norfolk Anglers Club president, John Brown (JB to those that know him).
I started with the hot hand and caught 4 trout right off the bat. Then JB got hot and caught 50,000 (or so it seemed). We fished a few new spots and a few old favorites. The clouds were puffy all day and the light wind kept us plenty cool… just an amazing day.
While I’m sitting here waiting for the red drum to arrive, I’ve decided to go back through some of my shots to pass the time.
Here is an otherwise, boring billfish shot… no sail, no light, no calm water and no majestic skies. BUT when you look at the fish over the entire frame of photos I was able to snap, NOW we’re cooking with gas!
The best part of this sailfish was actually a sailfish I was able to catch. Thanks to modern technology (and a CRAZY FAST SHUTTER), I was able to hold the rod and the camera at the same time. NICE…
How many times can you photograph a tuna and not have it look the same? These kind of shots are almost impossible to make look good with natural lighting… mainly because light doesn’t always shine “up”. While trying to take a nice crisp shot of their eyeballs, I was excited when I got back to my studio to see the single drop of blood drip from one of the fish.
I didn’t see that when I took the photograph, however it does explain how I got blood on my watch. =)
