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Shadyfisher85 (Ryan) and I met and greeted each other in the VA beach area on Friday and Saturday. We left the Bmore/DC area around 3pm Friday and battled the traffic to get down south.
20MPH north winds were pushing up big swells around the southern portion of the HRBT. You could see 4-6 footers from the road. But the northern end of the bridge was fishable, and so we launched around 9pm and headed out into the darkness. We fished until almost 4am and caught many species, including small sea bass, croaker, puppy drum, ribbonfish, flounder, striper, bluefish, toadfish, silver trout. I won the weird award with 3 ribbonfish, which are very strange looking eel-like fish that look like millipedes... they fight really hard at first, and then just give up and you're not even sure it's on anymore. But Ryan won the quality award with some nice stripers at 19", 24" and 26" on (what I believe to be) an unlikely lure for that size fish! (I'll let Ryan fill in the details if he wants to). It was, at times, pretty rough out there, and we each got a bunch of new scratches on our yaks.
A few hours later, after a bit of sleep, we headed to a sekret lokation to get some tog. I won't say where it is from fear that someone will steal our spot. We caught many tautog. I got at least 15 and Ryan upwards of 20. We caught them mostly on blue crab, but also on fiddlers and whole shrimp. This was my first time going for tog, and as beginner's luck would have it, within 20 minutes, I had landed a 19 incher! Man those fish are awesome fighters. I had the tog on my stringer and was happy as can be. A few minutes later, I pulled up the stringer to get another look at my trophy, and it was gone! Somehow, the clip had opened and the tog had released itself. DOH! Eventually, I did hook up with another keeper at 17.5". Ryan also got one that size. The rest of the tog we caught were a frustrating 14-15.75", just below the legal limit. Nevertheless, they were a blast to catch and I now understand why so many people are tog crazy.
Around there, we (especially Ryan) also caught some sea bass, puffers, toads and Ryan got a big eel that escaped before he could get a picture, and a slot red!
Below are some pics. I'm sure Ryan will post some more and provide more detail. He's still out there fishing today.
20MPH north winds were pushing up big swells around the southern portion of the HRBT. You could see 4-6 footers from the road. But the northern end of the bridge was fishable, and so we launched around 9pm and headed out into the darkness. We fished until almost 4am and caught many species, including small sea bass, croaker, puppy drum, ribbonfish, flounder, striper, bluefish, toadfish, silver trout. I won the weird award with 3 ribbonfish, which are very strange looking eel-like fish that look like millipedes... they fight really hard at first, and then just give up and you're not even sure it's on anymore. But Ryan won the quality award with some nice stripers at 19", 24" and 26" on (what I believe to be) an unlikely lure for that size fish! (I'll let Ryan fill in the details if he wants to). It was, at times, pretty rough out there, and we each got a bunch of new scratches on our yaks.
A few hours later, after a bit of sleep, we headed to a sekret lokation to get some tog. I won't say where it is from fear that someone will steal our spot. We caught many tautog. I got at least 15 and Ryan upwards of 20. We caught them mostly on blue crab, but also on fiddlers and whole shrimp. This was my first time going for tog, and as beginner's luck would have it, within 20 minutes, I had landed a 19 incher! Man those fish are awesome fighters. I had the tog on my stringer and was happy as can be. A few minutes later, I pulled up the stringer to get another look at my trophy, and it was gone! Somehow, the clip had opened and the tog had released itself. DOH! Eventually, I did hook up with another keeper at 17.5". Ryan also got one that size. The rest of the tog we caught were a frustrating 14-15.75", just below the legal limit. Nevertheless, they were a blast to catch and I now understand why so many people are tog crazy.
Around there, we (especially Ryan) also caught some sea bass, puffers, toads and Ryan got a big eel that escaped before he could get a picture, and a slot red!
Below are some pics. I'm sure Ryan will post some more and provide more detail. He's still out there fishing today.
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