Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 15, 1995 TAG: 9505170014
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Last fall, I spent 40 days straight going to the exact same spot and we caught between 50 and 200 fish every day,'' Pipkin said.
What makes this so spectacular? In the late '70s and early '80s people were wondering if the striped bass in the bay, and elsewhere along the coast, would go the way of the passenger pigeon.
Brood stocks dropped to an alarming low. The blame fell on everything from acid rain to overfishing, from a natural down cycle to increased predation from bluefish.
Things got so bad the Salt Water Sportsman magazine carried a notice that it no longer would publish how-to-catch stories on stripers, or rockfish as many coastal anglers call them.
Now how tos are being preached to a new generation of anglers eager to take advantage of the swelling numbers of stripers in the bay. The fishing has returned to the point that Virginia has gone from no season a half-dozen years ago to a 32-day season last year to a 107-day season this year.
This time, the season will cover May and June fishing, as well as an expansion of the fall season that has been open the past five years.
``Allocations may also go up next year and the year after,'' said Lewis Gillingham of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. ``We have had four years of excellent recruitment.''
The bulk of the early fishing will begin Tuesday and continue through June 14, when the season will be open in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, with the exception of the Potomac River, where the season is May 20-June 4. The season will have a two-fish limit with an 18-inch minimum and 28-inch maximum size requirement.
A trophy season, which began May 1, ends today. It affords fishermen the opportunity to keep one fish that is 32 or more inches in length.
Several 40-inch-plus fish have been landed, but the big interest is expected during the seasn from mid-May to mid-June. That's also the time schools of stripers are expected to move down the bay from their upstream spawning grounds.
``You will have a fabulous fishery off Reedville and Deltaville,'' said Claude Bain, director of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament. ``They talk about 60, 70, 80-fish a day in their chum slicks up there the last two weeks of May and the first 10 days of June.''
The annual Reedville Bluefish Derby has added striped bass to its June 8-10 tournament and will offer $2,500 for the largest catch.
Fish also will be taken along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, Bain said. That has been a fall fishing hot spot. The fall striper dates are Oct. 17-Dec. 31.
``I think the people who know how to catch them at the bridge -tunnel will do well [this spring], but I think the big excitement is going to be up the bay,'' Bain said.
The bay water temperature needs to climb a few degrees before the stripers school well in Virginia water, Pipkin said.
``Right now we are fishing in Maryland, and we are following them down as they come into Virginia,'' he said. ``Later on, through June, they will be schooled very heavily. They will be on what we call the feeding grounds, areas where a lot of baitfish hang out. Those areas are spread along shipping channel edges and will hold fish for a long period of time.''
The schooling fish should average 24 to 26 inches, he said. A 25-inch fish will weigh 6 to 8 pounds.
With the chumming technique comes opportunities for light-tackle and fly fishing.
``I have developed a technique where we get the fish right up next to the boat,'' Pipkin said ``Now we can't do it every day, but when they are schooling we can get them so close up to the boat that you can see them. They will swirl around the chum and also come up to the surface. If you are fly fishing, you can throw your flies right into the middle of it and they will take them and run.''
Pipkin welcomes light-tackle fishing.
``We are cautiously looking at how many fish are taken,'' he said ``We don't want to take more fish now and make more money now at the expense of our fishery in the future.''
Many of the charter boats that once chased bluefish are booking striper trips. Pipkin works out of Ingram Bay Marina in Heathsville (804-580-7292).
by CNB