ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512210068
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OUTDOORS
SOURCE: By BILL COCHRAN STAFF WRITER
Cold weather is causing striped bass to scurry from Chesapeake Bay, but not before anglers enjoyed their best catches in more than a decade.
A number of huge - ``Wow!'' What a catch!''-type - stripers were landed during the late fall, including a 55-pounder taken last week at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
``That's certainly the biggest fish that has been caught since 1981, the year the state record was caught,'' said Claude Bain, director of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament. The record is a 61-pounder landed from the Mattaponi River.
``The state record is going to fall very, very soon, since there were two striped bass bigger than the Virginia record caught in Maryland waters during the spring season,'' Bain said. ``There are fish bigger than the state record swimming around in the bay right now.''
Unfortunately for anglers, the fish that remain in the bay are closed-mouthed, the result of water temperatures that have dipped to 42 degrees.
``The fish really start to move out of the bay or get reluctant to feed around 42 degrees,'' Bain said. ``The people up the bay tell me that they think the fish pretty well are gone.''
Stripers in the lower bay became tough targets around the end of last week.
``The cold weather we are getting right now, I believe, has pretty well put the fishery on its last gasp,'' Bain said. ``The place I would go right now if I wanted to catch stripers would be out in the ocean off Smith Island to intercept migrants coming down from New England.''
Another spot might be along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where flurries of striped bass fishing have delighted anglers this fall. Last week, a friend of Bain was driving north toward Nags Head, N.C., when he spotted gulls working the surf off Pea Island. When he stopped, he found a mixture of large bluefish and stripers chasing trout onto the beach. Some of the blues were 17 pounds.
``That is the first I've heard of any big bluefish in the surf,'' said Bain.
Some of the monster stripers landed in the Chesapeake Bay came from the Lewisetta-Reedville-Deltaville areas. Capt.Chuck Obier, a charterboat skipper out of Reedville, saw his party land 14 stripers one day, seven of the fish weighing more than 30 pounds apiece. The biggest, taken by Coop Cooper of Troy, was 461/2 pounds.
Closer to home, striped bass are becoming more active in Smith Mountain Lake, following a late start. Many of the fish are in the 10- to 15-pound range and have been found in the upper end of the lake, according to Wendell Walton at Campers Paradise. Most of the fish are hitting bait, but a few have been taken on Red Fin and bucktail lures fished at daybreak, Walton said.
Creating as much excitement as the stripers are citation-size crappie. Four were weighed at Campers Paradise last week.
Roger Levy of Pulaski landed a 24-pound, 2-ounce striper at Claytor Lake. A 32-pounder was caught at Western Branch Lake in Suffolk. Striper fishing is reported to be excellent at Lake Anna and decent at Lake Gaston.
Philpott Lake is producing largemouth bass for fishermen working jig-and-pigs and Hopkins Shortie lures. Below the lake, anglers have been reeling in limit catches of trout from the Smith River.
Big brown trout continue to cruise along the shoreline of Lake Moomaw, but they remain difficult to catch. Several browns in the 3- to 5-pound range are starting to show up on the stringers of Moomaw fishermen willing to brave the cold weather, according to Larry Andrews of the Bait Place. Meanwhile, the big browns keep on cruising.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 linesby CNB