ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 24, 1996 TAG: 9611260018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Outdoors
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Roving schools of bragging-size bluefish were crashing the surf along the Outer Banks of North Carolina last week, providing the best late-season fishing in at least three years. Some veteran anglers on the south end of the Banks were saying the fishing might have been the best in a decade.
``A guy came in here and said they had 10 rigs out and they lost nine of them,'' said Ollie Jarvis, who runs Dillon's Corner, a tackle shop in Buxton. ``The bluefish just came through and went bang, bang, bang!''
There has been action as far south as Cape Point on Hatteras Island, but Jarvis is telling the fishermen who come through his door to head up to the Avon-to-Salvo section.
The fishing was particularly good in that area Thursday, and the same can be said of the Kitty Hawk-Nags Head-Oregon Inlet section.
``They were all over here,'' said Damon Tatem, who operates Tatem's Tackle Shop in Nags Head. ``Big bunches. People chasing them.''
Running with the blues, which weighed up to 151/2 pounds apiece, were hefty striped bass, a few in the 30-pound range. The most productive striper fishing was in the Oregon Inlet area, where fish were being hooked on big bucktails. Some were being caught by trollers. Old-timers were saying the bluefish/striped bass mix may be the best in 25 years.
The striped bass - or rockfish, as they often are called - are more abundant to the north in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. Decent weather there most of the past week allowed boat fishermen to stay after them.
Rick DeVivi, who operates a charter boat in the bay, said he had been walking the floor at night, too excited about fishing to sleep.
``I can't wait for 5 a.m.,'' he said. ``This is the best fishing we've had all season.''
It's been longer than that, said Claude Bain, director of the Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament.
``It is better than past years,'' said Bain. The bay is thick with stripers from the excellent 1993 hatch, he said. These fish measure 18 to 22 inches. Anything over 18 inches is legal to keep.
``Schools of those things are everywhere you look, on the surface, under birds,'' said Bain. ``And they are very aggressive ''
The big stripers began to show up in Virginia about 10 days ago, inhabiting their usual hot spot off the north end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel where some 40-pounders have been taken.
The action along the Virginia-North Carolina coast bodes well for anglers heading east this week with holiday time to invest in stripers and bluefish. The fish are there, but the weather must cooperate. And the November weather always is fickle.
``Some days you don't catch anything,'' said Jarvis.
Even on good days it can be like guerilla warfare.
``For some reason they will come into a certain spot and just nail it,'' Jarvis said. ``They may be there 15 minutes or they may be there 30 minutes and they are gone. You just chase them up and down the beach.''
But there are fish to chase, and that hasn't always been the case in recent seasons. When the stripers disappeared from the Banks about 25 years ago, plenty of bluefish remained and anglers unwisely said these wolf-like creatures always would be abundant. Then they disappeared, too. Suddenly, Thanksgiving Day no longer was the sure bet it once was.
The difference now is the striper population has enjoyed an amazing rebound, and the big blues that are migrating south this fall are sticking closer to the surf.
``I think there are a lot of little menhaden on the beach and maybe not any offshore,'' Tatem said, ``and they are pulling the blues in here from offshore.''
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines KEYWORDS: 2DAby CNB