Mid-Atlantic
Coast

Last Words

Fellow Afishionados,

This will be my final report for the year. That doesn’t mean there won’t be good fishing in these parts for the rest of 2002 – there will be. December is often when the biggest stripers of the year are landed in the Bay and off our coastline. So don’t put away the rods and shelve the boat just yet!

This time last year we were at the peak of the albie run at Harkers Island, NC. But so far this year it has not been meant to be. It’s infuriating, especially for those who made the long slog south in the last couple of weeks and found little fish or fishing, but in this game what was last year will not always be this year but may be next year. Now, that’s a confusing mouthful! True though. The problem has been a number of big blows that have hit the Carolina shoreline and kept the boats tied to the dock, interspersed with warm fronts that have made for calm, fishable days but either difficult-to-find or uncooperative false albacore. When anglers have got out of the harbor, there has been the occasional good day plus a few so-so ones where folks scramble and fish hard to land a couple of alberts for their efforts. There still could be a strong, late turkey-run of fish – let’s hope so. In the interim, there are red and blues to be caught in the area. In the Chesapeake Bay, we continue to see sea run stripers make their way north, plus there is plenty of good surface action for smallie stripers and blues in the various hot spots when the conditions are right. In addition to the usual rainbait, more schools of small to mid-size bunker are showing which will hopefully bring some bigger fish to the surface in the weeks to come. Down in the Lower Bay, I’m hearing reports of better sized stripers caught in and around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, including a 34" fish taken on a fly late last week.

So let’s get to the reports.

Don't forget to send me your own reports, and until next week...

Tight Lines!

Sebastian O'Kelly

Mid-Atlantic Coast

Upper Bay

Captain Tom Hughes (capttomhughes@hotmail.com) has been working the Patapsco River on down south through the Upper Bay. He’s finding good numbers of small stripers and blues. Here’s his report for this week.

Stripers caught this past week on the Patapsco River were located from topwater to depths of 48 feet. Bouncing jigging spoons with a silverside fly trailer, located 18" above the spoon, caught plenty of double hook ups on the deep-water structures. Checked areas such as the shoal just north of Ft. Smallwood and where Curtis Creek enters the Patapsco River (for diving birds). The best time seemed to be during the first 2 hours of an outgoing tide. The Upper Chesapeake Bay is still loaded with plenty of striped bass. The quantity is outstanding, while the quality is poor. Some keeper size stripers were caught, but the majority were between 16 and 17 1/2 inches. There are some nice size white perch schooled up on the oyster beds and willing to take a jigging spoon. The water temperature dropped to 50 degrees. Sighting diving birds between 6 and 7 Foot Knolls was no problem on Veterans Day. The fish stayed up for 3 hours, and a large number of striped bass were caught on light tackle. The most productive lures were Bass Assassins, 5" Assassins in Opening Nite, rigged on 1/4 and 1/2 ounce shad jigheads and Hopkins 3/4-ounce Silver Shorty jigging spoons.

Nice report, Tom. Thanks for the specificity on lure choice and location.

Elsewhere, there are lots of dinks to be found around the Bay Bridge pilings and the occasional 18 to 22" fish. Trollers are picking up the occasional 20 to 30" sea run striper working the channel edges by the Bridge. The mouth of Eastern Bay continues to be productive for small, breaking fish. Just look for the gulls. A report ran recently on tidalfish.com on sighting of gannets diving for baitfish in the Upper Bay. If that’s the case, it usually means bigger baitfish are present which often means bigger predators. That’s a good sign for the next couple of weeks.

Middle Bay

No reports filed at this time.

Lower Bay

Captain Lawrence Ritter (captritter@peoplepc.com) has provided us with a couple of very nice reports working the CBBT at night. This one is from last Friday.

Off this morning at 3am with Peter and George from Northern Va. These guys have been fishing with me a while and always seem to have awesome trips and this morning was no exception. We arrived at the tunnel to an ebbing tide and a west wind @ 10-15mph which was perfect. The stripers were already busting the surface when we arrived. It did not take long for them to hook up, which they did over and over again on fly. Then George gets a strong hit and his line starts peeling off his Billy Pate reel and sure enough after quite a good fight a 34" striper surfaces behind the boat. It was a huge fish and the biggest taken on fly for the boat this year. I was excited to have him in the net. The smaller fish were busting all around the boat and fast strips produced instant hook ups on clousers. We decided to try deeper water with sinking lines to find bigger fish, but instead found the same size fish 23-26" and 2 puppy drum or redfish. Peter's fish was gorgeous with 4 spots on each side. Once the sun peaked the horizon the fish moved into open water and we chased a couple flock of working gulls and released even more schoolies. Finally @ 7:30am we headed to the inlet and passed all the other boats going out and had to smile knowing they were 2 hours late. This striper fishery in the bay is done successfully by fishing moonphases and tide velocities and if leaving the dock at 3 am is what it takes I will do it and I never regret it.

34 inches – that’s the biggest striper I’ve heard caught on fly in the Bay since the spring catch and release season on the Susquehanna Flats. Laurence had another nice report over the weekend with the same anglers.

Off this morning with Peter and George again at 3:30am. The winds were WSW a solid 15mph and when we arrived at the bridge tunnel the tide was ebbing and the fish were stacked up in the lightline. Casting flies into such a stiff breeze to fish waiting in the lightline was quite a challenge. The guys decided to try fishing deep with sinking lines. I changed the boat position and anchored up-tide of the bridge and they casted sinking lines into the running current. As soon as the current carried the fly down to the base of the bridge pilings a stripers would inhale the fly. We were in about 35 ft of water and my fish finder was covered with fish from top to bottom. The WSW wind actually went more west and increased the velocity of the ebbing tide. This only increased the fish activity and we actually caught fish down deep for a couple hours. Once the sun peaked over the horizon the bite was over and we chased a couple flocks of working gulls and caught a few more fish and called it a day @ 7:30am. Once again it is so much fun to listen to guys on the VHF radio coming out on the bay shortly after sun up trying to find fish. Peter and George had two great mornings of fishing and a couple nice bags of fillets to take back to Northen Va.

DelMarVa Coast & Offshore

North Carolina Coast

It’s been blowing down here and keeping a lot of boats in. On other days, it’s been nice but the albies have tought to find or entice. That will hopefully change and with some weather in-between the two extremes, the albie fishing should pick up. Capt. Dave Dietzler (252-240-2850) has been finding a few of them nonetheless, not too mention some other finny critters as well.

Fishing on Friday was a blast, Scattered alberts offered a #of bites. Got lucky and slipped onto a bait ball with alberts and brown sharks. No sharks but 5 or 6 albacores. Later on that day ran other a great mark on my screen and dropped a bucktail down. 2 or 3 jigs, fish on. After a short battle a 33 pound red drum was boated. Sat. offered more of the same fishing minus the big drum. Small boat capsized on the shoals, be careful out there, it's not a friendly place!!! Sunday and Monday couldn't get out the inlet, big swell! Fished for trout and blues. More blues than trout. Caught one albert on the fly Sunday, in the inlet. Wind switched on Wednesday to the North coupled w/ rain. Small schools of albacore, limited shots, landed one, had another on for a few minutes... The sun will out in the morning and I will be smiling. More and more Bluefin sightings, it won't be long.

Thanks, Dave.

Capt. Gordon Churchill (captgordon@flyfish-nc.com) also finds that it is best to be versatile and flexible in the hunt for fish.

Strange week of albie fishing. Got off to a great start on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday(11/3,4,5) then we had a 30 knot day from the SW. Fishing really dropped off. A few here. A few there. Last couple days we have been fishing for reds and trout inshore. We have been doing pretty well with them. Capt David Rohde (a good captain and friend of mine from the Nags Head area) got the word that the stripers were biting really well at Mann's Harbor, so he went home early and has found the stripers to be quite cooperative. We'll wait this out.

That’s all for this year. Adieu until we fish again!