ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512040076
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Outdoors
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
The ocean water that laps at the pilings of Nags Head Pier suddenly became alive with fish last weekend.
They weren't the jumbo-size bluefish that are known to blitz the surf at this time of year. They were striped bass. They came in big numbers and big sizes. The water glistened with them. It was the good old days again.
``Nags Head Pier was eating up with them,'' said Damon Tatem, who operates a nearby tackle shop in a sand-blasted block building at the foot of Jockey Ridge.
``They caught over 100 and lost probably at least five or six times that many,'' Tatem said. ``The fish were between 15 and 25 pounds. It was the most I've ever seen in one place down here, ever - period.''
Tatem opened his shop in 1970. That year and maybe the next were the last decent ones to fish for striped bass in the surf and the sound along the fabled Outer Banks of North Carolina.
``After '73, we never even saw one,'' Tatem said.
The big fish disappeared from Maine to North Carolina, and worse yet, there were few young ones to replace them. Moratoriums on commercial and recreational fishing were put in place.
Big bluefish helped fill the void in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Outer Banks, their size and savagery delighting fishermen. But in time, they, too, began to disappear.
This year, the Thanksgiving holiday held little promise of blues for the anglers who gather at the Outer Banks. Things really looked bad when bluefish couldn't be located to the north in Virginia. Usually, anglers can load up on them along the wrecks off Virginia Beach, but Claude Bain, who operates the Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament, failed to turn up a fish during two trips.
``It was the first two trips that we've ever been skunked,'' he said.
The blues would have to appear in Virginia before you could expect to find them in North Carolina.
Then, the stripers showed up along the Outer Banks, and so did the speckled trout, a species usually chased away by bluefish. Suddenly, no one was singing the blues.
Trollers began catching stripers on bucktail-Mr.Twister rigs, and a couple of heavyweights - 40 and 45 pounds - were landed in the surf. But the blitz was at Nags Head Pier.
Schools of stripers moved in and began grabbing the bottom rigs pier fishermen had cast for trout. Lines popped like rifle shots. Along with striped bass, trout up to 7 pounds were hooked.
The stripers appeared in several spots along the Banks last week, a trend expected to continue through December, Tatem said.
``It should last until the water temperatures gets to 40 [degrees], which should be January,'' he said. ``We are getting a constant supply as cold weather up north pushes them down here.''
The striper fishing along the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel also has been producing good numbers of fish that weigh 15 to 25 pounds, Bain said.
Tatem isn't sure if the Banks stripers are Chesapeake Bay fish or fish from farther north, although he suspects they are not from the bay. The striper season in the North Carolina surf continues through April 30.
As for prospects for big blues at the Banks, Tatem has a one-word answer.
``None.''
Where are they?
``There are none,'' he said. ``They don't exist. The population has crashed.''
It is the same sad fate that befell striped bass a few seasons ago, which should make everyone go easy on this magnificent creature.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB