Virginia Fishing Report: Covering the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, Inshore and Virginia Offshore Fishing by Tidal Fish Correspondent Julie Ball
Virginia Fishing News
New!! Pending State Record GOLDEN TILE off the Ocean Pearl
On June 10th this past week I  received the call from CAPT Steve Wray at about 6pm when he was passing Cape Henry. He thought his angler had a new state record golden tile. I was already on my way to Long Bay Pointe to certify an IGFA Record Spadefish.
The group was deep dropping in the Norfolk Canyon, aboard the Ocean Pearl when Aaron Sledd of Virginia Beach hooked into something that took him 30 minutes to hoist to the top. The golden tile weighed in at a whopping 56lbs 8oz, topping the existing record caught last year, and just a few pounds shy of the All-Tackle World Record also caught last year.
VSWFT committee member, Capt Craig Paige showed up to verify the weight, and everything seemed in order.  Congratulations to the angler, captain, and crew aboard the “OCEAN PEARL.”

Virginia Fishing Reports
With all of the summer species now place, anglers are turning most efforts towards the abundant cobia, which are now available all over the lower bay and inshore waters. These brown-colored hunters are making their presence known as they take chummer’s offerings, and cruise along the top waters as if it were August. Boats using the chumming technique are having excellent success from the Rock Pile to the Buckroe area, and Latimer Shoals. Christian Seay and Charles Thain, both from the Eastern Shore, landed an 86-pounder, and a 90-pound bruiser respectively while chumming near buoy 13 this week.

The drum bite is

still good, as big reds continue to bite on the shoals and in the surf near Fisherman’s Island, as well as the Nine-foot Shoals and CBBT area. The black drum action is shifting more to the islands of the CBBT, which is common for this time of year.

Spadefish are still lagging Continue Reading »

 NOW LET’S SEE HOW DUMB WE REALLY ARE?
Just a couple of days ago, NOAA Fisheries released a proposed rule on the National Saltwater Angler Registry that requires anglers to be “registered” before fishing in 2009.   NOAA’s Fisheries Service is seeking comment on the proposed rule, which was a requirement of the reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Because states in the Northeast which already have statewide saltwater license couldn’t get it together, the Federal Government has had to step in and do this.   Here’s why:  The recreational fishing data collection system (Marine Recreational Fishing Static Survey- MRFSS) sucks.  Basically a bunch of contractors make cold-calls to random households to try and find people who fish.  I mean come on.  What are the odds they’ll find an angler?  There is a dockside survey also, but there are a ton of problems with that as well.  I’ve been fishing Jersey, NYC and Long Island Waters hard for about 15 years and I have never once been surveyed.    There are simply not enough folks surveyed.  And what about all those folks that fish estuaries or fish at night?  Nope, they aren’t even in the picture.  No survey exists for them.   And let’s be honest.  Lots of fishing mortality, particularly with bass, occurs at night.  Quite simply, MRFSS is a terrible system and it’s not even designed to do what it has been tasked to do. 

Here’s where the serious problem lies:  When managers don’t have complete and accurate data it can and often does result in overly restrictive measures, or much worse, it can result in continued overfishing.  In either case, we are the big losers.  It is undeniable that with a licensing or registry-system, fishery management numbers would be greatly enhanced.    “The national registry of saltwater anglers is the key to closing a major gap in information on recreational fishing,” said Jim Balsiger, NOAA acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “It will help us conduct surveys to get a more complete picture of how recreational fishing by an estimated 14 million people is affecting fish stocks. This will lead to better stock assessments and more effective regulations to rebuild and manage these valuable fish.”
Now here’s what sucks about this National Angler Registry when you compare to a regular state license.   While the registry will start out free in 2009, in 2010 anglers will be charged around $25.  While a state license can and will be used for restoration and fishery management in the state, by law, the registry fee taken by NOAA is to be used solely to offset the cost of issuing the registration. It can not be specifically directed to fisheries management.   And get this…   The money wouldn’t even go to NOAA, but rather directly into the black hole of the U.S. Treasury!

At this point it’s just stupid for all those bonehead states in the Northeast to continue to resist implementing a saltwater license.  Yet, with the exception of Connecticut, whose license bill failed this year, no such license bills exist as far as I know.  In my home state, there have been meetings and a lot of talk.  But any reasonable draw up of a palatable license proposal gets shot down by a handful of loudmouths in the recreational fishing industry.  That’s a huge bummer.  So much good could come out of a reasonably drawn up saltwater licensing system.  Money, clout, a louder voice etc…  And such systems have certainly been drawn up.

Yet, despite all the well-written articles describing the benefits of such a license out there, there are still a lot of false arguments flying around against a saltwater license.  E.g. the money will go into the general coffer and not be used for fisheries (even though there is a law in the books of every state that would prevent this, not to mention the federal Wallop Breau audits)… It would kill an already strained recreational fishing industry (yeah right…  Look at FL).  The list goes on and to cover it all would take more space than I have here.

Aside from all of these fallacies, the simple fact remains that if those non-saltwater-license sates in the Northeast don’t get their act together and implement a license we might as well be throwing that money away, when it could be benefiting those states recreational fisheries greatly.   Still, there seems to be no movement, and still, the same folks are voicing the same short-sighted opposition.  So, how stupid are we???

On to the Northeast Fishing Reports
Crazy good fishing pretty much across the board (except for the last two days in my neck of the woods…  Will get to that later).   New Jersey continues to have that sick run of menhaden right off of its beaches and each day blitzes have been going off right up on the beaches as bass pin the big bait up against jetties.  Inshore, their fishing slowed quite a bit with a big increase in water temp this week.  New York Harbor started the week out fishing pretty good.  Now?  It kinda sucks.  Unless of course you like bluefish. Lots of them around, but the bass are small and sparse.  Same in Jamaica Bay.  Some schoolies at dawn on poppers and small stuff being thrown up against the sod banks, but after that, nada.  The livelineing in both Raritan and Jamaica Bay is petering out quickly.  Still, some nice bass being caught early in the morning, but after that it’s all blues bighting your bunker in half.   As one moves east across Long Island, the fishing reports get better.  In central Long Island, there are some monster weakfish being caught in the Great South Bay.    On the North Shore there seems to still be plenty of schoolie action, but very few bigger fish.  Out east, well…  It’s “East” and as you might have imagined, it’s fishing pretty good.  Lots of big fish showing in the flats out there and I’m told there is an extraordinary number of sandeels.   On the ocean side, the regulars are taking some really good fish tossing plugs and flies along the usual structure.  In central and eastern Connecticut, I’m hearing that things just exploded this week with an influx of squid and big fish busting on them good.  Same deal with Rhode Island.  In Mass, the action got quite a bit better this week as well.
The water is warming quickly and so far we seem to be having an exceptionally Continue Reading »