The PSWSFA Youth and Ladies Tournament will be July 16-24. This is a free tournament targeting croaker and flounder. Weigh the fish at any weigh station and record the weights on the club entry forms. Bring the forms to Dare Marina by 1 PM, Saturday July 24. At that time, there will be a cookout and tournament awards will be presented. The youth age cutoff is 15 (as in, they have not reached their 16th birthday). The cookout is free to all club members, whether you fished in the tournament or not. The youth and ladies fishing the tournament do not have to be club members but need to be fishing with a club member (you can take your neighbor?s kids fishing and so on). There is no registration for the tournament but try and let Steve Martin or any board member know how many will be attending the picnic.
The International Game Fish Association has posted some archived articles on their website that are very informative. You will find things like how to rig a swordfish bait, tie a Bristol knot to connect braid to mono, rig ballyhoo on a circle hook and more. Check them out at: http://igfa.org/About/IGFA-Article-Archive.aspx.
One of our club?s sponsors, Grafton Fishing Supply, has a new website up. Check them out as they add more to it: www.graftonfishingsupply.com
The date for the 2012 Flounder Bowl has been set. Mark June 30, 2012 on your calendars.
July 5, Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, went out looking for cobia. They saw 6 and hooked 3. They pulled off the big fish, boating 2 cobia of 41 and 48 inches. They had to come in early because two of his anglers had dental appointments with me that afternoon.
July 4, Brandon Bartlett ran up to 26 Mile Hill to check on the tuna bite there. Well, there wasn?t one. They did catch 5 dolphin with the largest over 20 pounds.
July 3, Keith Blackburn went chumming for cobia. He weighed one in at 69 pounds.
July 2-3, Saturday, went over to the Eastern Shore with Capt. Blake Hayden of Right Tide Charters. Saw plenty of tarpon. Had baits in two. Did not get a hook in them enough to get them to jump. Both fish just came to the surface enough to show themselves and the hook pulled out. These were not as big as two we had jumping last summer while fishing with Blake. Didn't catch them either. Those were pushing 200 pounds. Saturday's fish were 60-80 pounds. Starting to think that the proper way to fish for these critters is with a shotgun. Sunday, headed the Healthy Grin offshore. Heard more boats catching blue marlin than anything. Few tuna by the fleet. We had a blue come in an attack a teaser. Had another blillfish tailing beside the boat. Had a big bait cut off right behind the hook, probably wahoo. Had a tuna dump most of a Tiagra 50 wide very fast before the hook pulled. I believe that was our bigeye bite. Stayed around trying for a bigeye wham. Looked good, never another big bite. Ended up with 5 yellowfin, missed a few other bites. We were around the Norfolk Canyon.
July 2-3, Bernie Sparrer fished out of Hatteras both days. They caught a total of 15 dolphin and 2 blackfin tuna.
July 2, Capt. Jorj Head ran offshore with Dr. Randy Blanchard. They caught a yellowfin tuna and a few dolphin.
July 2, Martin Freed and Ruta Vaskys trolled Sam?s Hill for tuna. They caught some dolphin, up to 21 pounds, and a cobia. The cobia hit their tuna feather. They then hit a wreck and caught a nice batch of sea bass.
July 1, Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, went sight fishing for cobia. They saw about 15, hooked 8 and landed 6. They had a couple of fish over 50 pounds.
July 1, Matt Rinck ran offshore out of Rudee Inlet. They a yellowfin tuna and 4 dolphin. Matt caught their largest dolphin at 25 pounds.
June 30, Capt. Rick Wineman fished the Norfolk Canyon area. They caught a yellowfin tuna and 16 dolphin. They lost another tuna at the boat and missed a white marlin.
June 27, I looked for cobia as I moved the Healthy Grin back to Virginia Beach. I saw two in the buoy 18 area. I did not catch either. When I got to my slip, my dockmate (Day Tripper) had just finished cleaning their limit of 15 yellowfin tuna. June 27, Larry Lusk and his two sons ran their boat out to the Norfolk Canyon. They caught gaffer dolphin, got whammed by tuna (and lost them all) then hooked up their first marlin on their own boat. Matt Lusk jumped overboard and photographed the release from underwater. June 26, Wes Blow chummed for cobia. He caught a 49-inch fish. June 26, Capt. Blake Haden, www.righttidecharters.com , fished the Norfolk Canyon. They hooked 4 blue marlin (not at the same time). A big girl destroyed the 200 pound leader. They got the other three with the largest about 450 pounds. They estimated the big blue at least 750 pounds. In between the blue marlin, they caught 6 yellowfin tuna in the 50-55 pound range. June 25, the flounder pounders were out in force as 111 boats competed in the Flounder Bowl out of Dare Marina. The results were mixed. Some boats only managed a keeper or two. Others came in with their limits but no really large fish. Some boats managed only a few fish but they were large. One boat managed to catch a limit of large fish. Teams weighed in their 3 heaviest flounder. In general, fishing was best around the CBBT. Those fishing with live spot brought in the heaviest stringers. The top boat this year was the Paige II captained by Craig Paige. Their 3-fish stringer weighed an impressive 25.23 pounds. Second Place was the Healthy Grin captained by Ken Neill and sponsored by the office of Dr. K E. Neill. Their stringer weight was 21.28 pounds. Third Place was the High Point captained by Chris Bently with a weight of 19.82 pounds. Fourth Place was Relentless Charters with Capt. Kenny Jarvis. They weighed in 18.67 pounds. Fifth Place was the Mulch Man captained by Clifton Rowe and sponsored by Mercury Mulch. They weighed 18.06 pounds. Fatty Flatty, captained by Barry Bradley, rounded out the top six. Their stringer weighed 17.61 pounds. The big fish Calcutta was won with a monster, 12.24 pound flounder. Hunter Gray fishing as part of the Paige II team caught this fish. The top lady angler was Tricia Neill. She caught a 5.25 pound flounder while fishing on the Healthy Grin. The top youth angler was James Dearnley. He caught a 5.99 pound flounder while fishing on the Outnumbered, sponsored by Pankoke Marine Construction. The top fish weighed in by a member of the PSWSFA was a 11.59 pound flounder caught by Ken Neill fishing on the Healthy Grin. The Healthy Grin, sponsored by the office of Dr. K. E. Neill, won the sponsors challenge trophy. The Lucky Dog really was a lucky dog. The rule is that you must be present to win. The first boat drawn had already left the party so another team was selected. This year?s Lucky Dog is Tyler Blanks. The total payout for the tournament was $17,450 plus merchandise. The Paige II team took home $11,000.June 25, Flounder Bowl day. A bunch of club members were out there fishing. Most everyone caught some flounder. I fished with my family and we caught a total of 4 flounder, all keepers. They were 18.5, 23, 24, and 30 inches long. We caught our fish on live spot at the 3rd island of the CBBT. June 22, JT Hale ran out of Oregon Inlet. They caught 17 gaffers and a yellowfin tuna. They lost a second tuna at the boat. June 22, Martin Freed and Ruta Vaskys fished the 26 Mile Hill. They had some tackle busted up, caught a gaffer dolphin, a 70-pound bluefin, and a smaller tuna that they think was a blackfin, 28 inches. June 19, Wes Blow made his first trip after getting his boat out of the shop. The boat still works. Wes weighed in a 59 pound cobia.June 19, Larry Lusk ran down to the South Tower where they experienced some excellent top water action with amberjack. They then ran up to the Cigar where they caught dolphin in the 18 to 20 pound range. They finished their day at the Weather Buoy where they found dolphin in the ?hundreds?.
June 19, Keith Blackburn chummed for cobia. They had a good day catching 3 fish.
June 18 and 19, I spent some time chumming at Stony Lead. Had two runs both of which turned out to be full-grown southern stingrays. They gave me a nice workout. I spent most of the time catching spot by the chum pot. I filled up the livewell both days in preparation for the Flounder Bowl.
June 18, Capt. Jorj Head, (757) 262-9004, went sight fishing for cobia. They caught 4 fish with the largest a bit over 50 pounds. It was good enough to get them into 4th place in the Hampton Creek Tournament. The boats that beat them caught their fish chumming.
June 18, Keith Blackburn tried for cobia and caught one in his chum slick.
June 18, Steve Martin tried for flounder in the buoy 42 area without any luck. They stopped at Back River Reef on the way in and caught 3 flounder.
June 12, Mike Hurst and Bernie Sparrer fished the buoy 42 area. They caught 6 flounder with the largest weighing in at 6 pounds.
June 11 and 12: Saturday, we ran down to the South Tower (A Tower) to try and jig up some amberjack and to look for cobia. We also had ballyhoo on board to do a little trolling in the area. We did not have any live bait and I had a report from Brandon Bartlett that the jacks were real tough to get a bite on even with croaker the previous week. We got to the tower early. We did not get a bite on the jigs. We were leaving when Capt. Rick Wineman showed up with live baits. They ended up catching 5 amberjack. Rick is a nice guy and called us on the radio and offered us some croaker but we did not need any where we made our second stop. We dropped our jigs at the B Tower and the dolphin came out. Steve Martin and I had dolphin jumping all over. Charles fish was pulling harder and he thought that he might have a really big dolphin. His turned out to be an amberjack. The rest of the morning was the same. Very aggressive amberjack and the dolphin kept showing up. At first, the dolphin bit the jigs. Then they stopped that and we found that amberjack chunks suited them just fine. The dolphin were all gaffers. They became so after we broke off a couple trying to make them slingers. Most of them were in the 10-12 pound range with the largest at 22 pounds. The amberjack were 46 to 49 inches long. We got tired of cranking on those amberjack so we decided to just put out some ballyhoo and troll around the B Tower as there were obviously dolphin in the area. Boats were seeing some marlin to our east. We also wanted to dive inshore and cruise up along the coast to look for cobia. Well, we would troll some circles and then decide on which way to go. Soon after we got baits out, the temperature alarm goes off on the starboard engine. You have got to be kidding. We had the same thing happen a couple of weeks ago. Carter Machinery never found anything wrong with the engine and my diver did not find any obstructions outside of the boat. The engine had been running cool since then. We shut the engine down and checked things out while trolling towards home on the port engine. Well, we knew the engine is fine, checked the water strainer, clear. Charles just cycled the thru-hull valve a few times and presto, good water flow. The long rigger is going off with another gaffer jumping around. Well, close the engine hatch before you bring that thing in the boat. The overheating issue was fixed and we had another dolphin in the box but our minds were made up. Let's go inshore and look for cobia in case it happens again and this time we cannot get the water flowing (it did not happen again and the boat is running fine but I guess it is time for some fitting work). We stopped back at the A Tower. Did not see any cobia but did find an amberjack willing to bite a jig, another 49 inch fish. Ran on in and got close to shore around Corolla and worked our way up the beach to Rudee. We saw a lot of bait and rays. Some turtles and a single cobia that entire way. It was small and we did not get a good cast on it. Box of dolphin, sore arms from the amberjack, and we came in on two engines....good day. We had decided to just sleep in the next day but then Wes Blow called. His boat is at Dare Marina getting worked on and he wanted to know if we were going to be fishing. Charles and I talked about it, both feeling pretty tired. We decided that we would take his boat cobia fishing and that he would call Wes back and that they would pick a time (late as possible). Somehow, that turned out to be 5 AM. Next time, I'm picking the time. Something about having to be at the right spot, with the right tide or we would miss it. After 6 hours on a chum slick, I asked is it the right time yet? We were at Stony Lead, no action at all (did have one 12-inch cobia follow a bait up). Finally got tired of that, pulled in the chum pot and cruised around looking for them for a couple of hours. Again, plenty of stuff to see other than cobia. Pretty weekend on the water. I don't know where the cobia are. We were back in both days prior to the thunderstorms.
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