New Year 2006/2007 Striper

Well after our Christmas break visiting family in Indiana and breaking down in our car in Lexington, KY on the way back Wednesday, we needed some pullage. I checked the forecast and gathered up a crew consisting of myself, Lanie, Ike, Greg, and Steve. Our plan was to eel all night at and around the CBBT highrise Thursday evening after work. We arrived to a parking lot but found an empty caisson to call our own at the beginning of the outgoing around 6:30 pm. We fished eels at various depths around the high rise.

We didn’t get a singe hit until 9:45 pm and what a hit it was. A slob jumped on a line and Greg horsed her to the boat, 47 inches, 44 lbs with a 31 inch girth for Greg’s personal best and citation. Congrats Greg.
Greg's beauty

No more hits the entire outgoing so we move a little south and set up on the ocean side in 45 feet of water. Steve picks up a nice 38 incher. I tell him it’s anglers choice to take your one fish over the slot or release him in hopes of getting something bigger. Steve says let’s keep him…good choice as pickins were slow all night.

New Year striper

Not much more going on at this spot so we move a little more south looking for bait and find some at 30 feet of water but now it’s after 2:00 am and only 2 fish for a crew of 5. This spot was much better but for various reasons, we lost more fish than we kept and several that could have been citations. I lose one that was close to Greg’s size but do get a nice 41 incher to the boat…finally.

Mike new year striper

Lanie is next up and gets a 39 inch striper in.  Think it was about 3:30 am.

Lanie, big stiper, late night

Our last fish came as we almost lose the incoming completely at 5:45 am with Doc Ike pulls in a nice 40 incher.
Ike and striper

Slack tide as dawn approaches and the crew decides that we need 5 more fish but don’t want to mess with the bay limits so we head to Cape Henry to see if we can troll up some coastal rocks. Well our hearts were just not in this endeavor after eelin all night but we do manage one 29 inch rock that looks like a real dink compared to our other cows in the box. We call it after a couple of hours as we all get a little slap happy from no sleep.

Great evening on the water with friends. We all agreed that last night, we got quality fish, not quantity.

Greg scale

group shot

Made a quick trip on Sunday.  Crossed the bay over to Cape Charles and trolled south towards the concrete ships. We picked up several decent fish up to 37 inches and some dinks, all hits on our chartreuse umbrellas. Since we have plenty of striper, we released these to grow up and make more babies. Only 2 or so hours on the water Sunday.

Lanie rockfish

MJ striper

Well after our Christmas break visiting family in Indiana and breaking down in our car in Lexington, KY on the way back Wednesday, we needed some pullage. I checked the forecast and gathered up a crew consisting of myself, Lanie, Ike, Greg, and Steve. Our plan was to eel all night at and around the CBBT highrise Thursday evening after work. We arrived to a parking lot but found an empty caisson to call our own at the beginning of the outgoing around 6:30 pm. We fished eels at various depths around the high rise.
We all had a fantastic time despite slow pickens. Here is a my video report of the evening. CBBT Eeling on SeaDuction.

We didn’t get a singe hit until 9:45 pm and what a hit it was. A slob jumped on a line and Greg horsed her to the boat, 47 inches, 44 lbs with a 31 inch girth for Greg’s personal best and citation. Congrats Greg.

No more hits the entire outgoing so we move a little south and set up on the ocean side in 45 feet of water. Steve picks up a nice 38 incher. I tell him it’s anglers choice to take your one fish over the slot or release him in hopes of getting something bigger. Steve says let’s keep him…good choice as pickins were slow all night.

Not much more going on at this spot so we move a little more south looking for bait and find some at 30 feet of water but now it’s after 2:00 am and only 2 fish for a crew of 5. This spot was much better but for various reasons, we lost more fish than we kept and several that could have been citations. I lose one that was close to Greg’s size but do get a nice 41 incher to the boat…finally.

Lanie is next up and gets a 39 inch striper in.

Our last fish came as we almost lose the incoming completely at 5:45 am with Doc Ike pulls in a nice 40 incher.

Slack tide as dawn approaches and the crew decides that we need 5 more fish but don’t want to mess with the bay limits so we head to Cape Henry to see if we can troll up some coastal rocks. Well our hearts were just not in this endeavor after eelin all night but we do manage one 29 inch rock that looks like a real dink compared to our other cows in the box. We call it after a couple of hours as we all get a little slap happy from no sleep.

Great evening on the water with friends. We all agreed that last night, we got quality fish, not quantity. 

Made a quick trip on Sunday.  Crossed the bay over to Cape Charles and trolled south towards the concrete ships. We picked up several decent fish up to 37 inches and some dinks, all hits on our chartreuse umbrellas. Since we have plenty of striper, we released these to grow up and make more babies. Only 2 or so hours on the water Sunday.

Happy New Year’s to all.