I received the below report from fellow fishing friend Julie Ball from some fishing she did last week before the winds blew into the Chesapeake, sounds like some good fishing. Congrats to her on achieving 150 Virginia Citations, that is a heck of an accomplishment!

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My parents came into town from Florida for my birthday this week. This was bad timing for fishing, with not much of a break in the weather. We moved my birthday gathering from Tuesday to Monday evening, since Tuesday looked like the most fishable day of the week. Capt Skip Feller, captain of the Rudee Angler and supervisor of the Rudee Inlet Head boat fleet, kept hinting that he wanted to go fishing. Skip hadn’t fished on a “small” boat in years, and was itching to go. So, when the forecast was still W 10-15, we planned to point the bow east off Virginia Beach in our 31-footer and go as far as we could. Tuesday morning, the wind was from the SW at 15 to 18, but was supposed to drop to W at 10 after 7am. That didn’t happen. But, my parents were going fishing!

We left from the Virginia Beach Fishing Center around 8am, and made our way to the Chesapkeake Light Tower in 3 to 4 foot seas. The Backlash was there trolling for kings, and told us on the radio that he was going in early due to the weather. We looked around at the 3 to 4 footers, and decided to stay at the Light Tower and try to drop on a few wrecks. We put Skip to work, and he expertly maneuvered the boat over the wreck while we fished. After about an hour, the seas dropped to about 2 to 3 feet, and Robin gave Skip a break so he could fish. We hauled up several dozen nice keeper seabass to about 3 pounds.

At about noon, we noticed the seas had dropped to 1 to 2 feet, so we decided to see if we could make it to the Triangle wrecks, and we did. Again, the seas were 3 to 4 feet. My parents did great! Robin held the boat while we all fished again. We caught seabass to almost 5 pounds. After awhile, I noticed marks above the wreck that looked like bluefish. A few minutes later, Skip pulled up a CRUSHED seabass head. Ah-ha, they’re here! Let’s see how big they are. I broke out my Braid Slammer jigs on 50lb Power Pro line. A few minutes later, Skip was pulling up a seabass on the jig, and he shouted, “There he is!” A bluefish had taken his seabass and was hooked up. When it surfaced, I knew he was big enough! It was a stud! The next one hit the same way; he grabbed my seabass on the way up. It was another citation fish, although not as big as Skip’s. The seas had calmed to 1 to 2 feet again, and we headed back in at about 4pm with a cooler full of seabass and bluefish. I have a tough crew! And Skip caught fish for a change instead of taking others to catch them!

Back at the dock, Skip’s bluefish tipped the scale at a whopping 19lbs, 15oz which should be the new State Leading bluefish! Way to go Skip! I was also a happy camper, since I was able to obtain my goal for the year. My citation bluefish gave me my 150th Citation for the State of Virginia, giving me the 1st ever 6th Level Master Angler honors! I’m done!
Not bad for a crappy weather day of fishing!! Julie

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