The tuna take their sweet time moving up the Atlantic Coast into Virginia waters, but they have finally arrived.
In last week’s Virginia Beach Tuna Tournament, 97 boats turned out. First place went to Reel Emotion with 172.4 lbs., second to Wired Up with 160.2 lbs. and third went to Reelin’ N’ Dealin’ with 154.8 lbs.
Team Reelin’ N Dealin’ caught largest single tuna at 104.9 lbs. The largest wahoo was caught by team Le Grande Slam II and weighed 23.0 lbs. The largest mahi went to team Rebel at 21.3 lbs.
Along with the good offshore tuna fishing, mahi numbers are on the rise and billfish numbers should follow. Bottom fishing remains good for tilefish and grouper. Amberjack have arrived at the southern towers.
Inshore a few nice flounder are being taken inside the lower bay now. Spanish mackerel, cobia and schools of red drum are being encountered along the oceanfront and on the bay. There should be some king mackerel available near shore. The cobia and red drum hot spot seems to be the eastern shore shoals. Sheepshead are holding on structure and the spadefish are at the Chesapeake Light Tower and over most all wrecks. Whiting are taking bloodworms at Kiptopeke.
Outer Banks
OBX surf anglers are catching sea mullet, pompano, Spanish and bluefish. Sound side fishermen are landing trout and spot. The OBX pier reports go like this – Avalon: Spanish early and sea mullet. Nags Head: Spanish. Jennette’s: Spanish, flounder and spades. Outer Banks: trout, sea mullet, flounder, black drum and taylor blues.
The Little Bridge on the Nags Head/Manteo causeway reported Stripers, small Sheepshead and Spot.
Inshore boats are having good luck with ribbon fish, Spanish, bluefish and amberjack.
Offshore Captains are enjoying outstanding catches of yellowfin tuna, bigeye tuna, wahoo and mahi. Wednesday was a blow-out. All boats stayed in port.
Hatteras Offshore
The morning inshore charters returned Wednesday with good catches of Bluefish, a few Spanish Mackerel, Puppy Drum and some Cobia. It was an exciting day for offshore anglers. Two White Marlin and one Sailfish were released. The Dolphin bite was pretty good, so they did return with some meat fish.
Freshwater
The Rivers
The James, New and Shenandoah? Who knows? Maybe fishable, maybe not. We surely have had the rain!
Potomac River
Capt. Chaconas says it’s time to break out the topwaters, stickworms and sunscreen. The water is finally clearing, returning to normal tidal movements and warming.
With morning high tides, move into inside grass edges or find clear water. Start with topwaters either on 20-pound Gamma Torque braid or 10 pound Gamma Copoly, depending on how much grass is there. Also walking baits are good to try. Find the cadence that produces bites. Watch how fish attack the bait. If they are reluctant, take that as a clue they aren’t willing to come up to the surface. Before abandoning this pattern, try to let the bait sit with subtle pulls.
Chickahominy Lake
The water temps are in the mid-70s and warming quickly. Fishing with Capt. Conway, Bill Marley and Charles Simmons had 28 bluegills, 6 crappie, 1 blue cat, 1 bullhead and 1 gar. Karen Anderson had 61 bluegills, 1 yellow perch, and 2 warmouth. Tom Porter had 34 bluegills, 1 shellcracker, 9 crappie, 1 blue cat and 1 bass.
The Major Lakes
Anna, Buggs and Smith Mountain are all at good levels as the summer pattern for bass sets in. Crappie are deep, bream have mostly finished up spawning. Stripers pop up in the early morning hours, then go deep. Smith Mountain anglers are having the best luck after dark.
Lake Orange
Contributed by Darrell Kennedy of Angler’s Landing (540.672.3997). The water temperature is in the mid 80s and the lake is stained. With all the rain, the fish are remaining shallow and feeding up on bait fish and worms. Bass are being caught on topwaters and soft plastics. Crappie are being caught on small minnows and jigs at 8 to 10-foot depths. Some impressive walleye have been caught on nightcrawlers and on stick baits worked over grass beds. The catfishing has been excellent with the lower end of the lake, near the dam, being best.