Lower Chesapeake tales from the salt

[MrFishingToughGuy]

Water is warming up with the occasional interruption of cold fronts and wicked windstorms. Spent a few days out of the last week chasing whatever would bite from shore. Mostly limited to wade and jetty fishing in the Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay bridge-tunnel areas but have done exceedingly well on sublegal flounder (keep in mind fluke must be 19" to harvest here in VA) dragging heavy clousers on the bottom, especially around the rock piles. Some smaller croaker (3/4 of a pound) and hickory shad up to 16" thrown in. Regularly seeing large schools of small bunker with flounder and croaker boiling underneath them. Thus far no drum, trout or blues from shore but this should change once we have another warming trend. Boat anglers are doing very well on taylor blues, small trout and puppy drum at the HRBT and Lynnhaven areas...

Never knew saltwater flyfishin would be so much fun! Typical day sees us hooking around 20-25 fish apiece and landing around 12-15, mostly flounder in the 12-16" range. Seems like there is a good deal of public access on the beaches, so I'm going to have my hands full trying out new spots every week.

PM if interested in joining or carpooling from Richmond area.

Marty

[empeekay]

Would love to hit that area late fall early winter when the big Rocks are heading back south. Hoping to make a run up on the Gunpowder next week with Matt - care to join us?
Mike K.

[MrFishingToughGuy]

Hey Mike!

You mean Memorial Day weekend? My wife has the entire weekend off which bodes poorly for my chances at doing anything other than a little brookie fishin in Shenandoah NP (which is the usual weekend gig now).

I learned recently that the DNR has officially discovered Didymo in the Gunpowder so please clean your gear throroughly afterward with 10% dish detergent or 2% bleach. And good luck! If I can make it, I'll let you know.

Best regards to you and Matt (and the rest of the K crew)!

Marty