Just in time for Memorial Day Weekend, here come the cobia. For the past few weeks, cobia have been moving up the Carolina coast and now they’re here. The first schools have joined with red drum and will hit anything in sight – live eels, spot, menhaden, mullet, large spoons, white buck tails, plastic eels, swimming plugs or cut bait. They are hanging around buoys and other structure, like the islands and pilings of the CBBT. Capt. Todd of Knot Wish’n Charters released his first Cobia of the season this past week.
The black sea bass season reopened May 15th. The bite has been very good with several boats catching limits of jumbo bass. The Triangle Reef and Tower Reef are hotspots. Sea bass will bite squid, crab, fresh cut fish, clam strips, shrimp, or diamond jigs.
The spring black drum bite has been excellent. The best action is coming from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where fish are being caught seaside and bayside. Some have topped 50 pounds, but the 20 to 25 ponders are best for the table. Blue crabs, whole clam, peeler crab, whelk, peeler crab/clam sandwich, buck tails and lead head jigs are all good baits.
Spanish mackerel and bluefish are being caught along the oceanfront, in the Bay and inside inlets and creeks.
Sheepshead are showing up on CBBT pilings. They are biting fiddler crabs, mole crabs or clam tight against the structure.
Flounder fishing inside Rudee and Lynnhaven Inlets is picking up, some nice keepers have been caught. The best flounder baits are bucktails dressed with a GULP! or a minnow/squid sandwiches fished on a Sea Striker Fluke Killer.
The puppy drum bite remains good inside Lynnhaven. And Blues have been popping up as well. Virginia Beach Pier anglers are catching Spanish, blues, roundheads, trout and skates.
As Memorial Day weekend approaches, fishing is heating up.
Freshwater
It’s bluegill time in most of the lakes and ponds in Virginia as the scrappy males guard their nests. Popping bugs will get the job done al0ng with meal worms and plain old earth worms. Crappie have moved to deeper water. Striped bass are well up into the Dan and Staunton Rivers and will hit plugs and soft plastics. Trout streams are full of water and fish.
