Bluefin tuna made a good showing last week out of Pirates Cove and Wanchese. Private boats caught several nice fish, the biggest tuna weighing in at 831pounds.
And more good news on the saltwater front. An in-the-slot puppy drum was caught at ramp 55. There were some small black drum landed at the Jetties. In Nags Head, some stripers are still showing up in the sound.
In Virginia waters, Dr. Ken Neill and the crew aboard the Healthy Grin found a calm day on the ocean and caught sea bass to 5 pounds, but the bite was much slower for this trip. The fishermen hit seven different wrecks and were unable to get a limit.
Says Dr. Neill, “We also caught small bluefish, a big conger eel, and spiny dogfish. But even the dogfish bite seemed slow.”
In freshwater, big bass are the main news, reports Stan Cobb at Greentop. Bill Deeds of Orange weighed in a monster bag during the Presidents Day tournament on Lake Anna on Monday. His 5 fish limit weighed 27.30 lbs. A bag weighing 16 lbs. finished second.
At Smith Mountain Lake, there were 7 bags over 20 lbs. reportedly brought to the scales on Sunday with a winning weight of 21 lbs. Good catches of crappie are occurring at Kerr, Anna, Smith, and local ponds.
The new moon will be up on the 22nd, so look for fishing to improve even more during this favorable moon phase. Bridge areas have been excellent for crappie on the bigger lakes. This is also a great time to target the walleye in our lakes as they make their spawning runs. Chesdin, Anna, Gaston, Kerr, and Smith Mountain all have good populations of walleye. Stripers are gearing up in these lakes also. Throwing swimbaits across shallow flats and defined points can yield good results. Many of the walleye are found by targeting stripers.
Look for fishing to greatly improve in our tidal rivers, with the new moon approaching. Yellow perch, rockfish, bass and crappie will surely start to come alive before the end of February. The upper James is shaping up nicely for the end of February, so let’s hope the water doesn’t rise or muddy up. The temperatures of most of the bodies of water are around 46 degrees.