THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 19, 1994 TAG: 9412190165
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB HUTCHINSON, OUTDOORS EDITOR
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Fortunately, Virginia Morton knows well how to read the digital scales used for weighing fish at tournaments.
Those skills got a real test Saturday when she was the weighmaster for the Virginia Beach Anglers Club's annual striped bass tourney.
The winning fish weighed 20.10 pounds, the second-place fish 20.05. That's just 8/10 of an ounce.
``I'm just glad we weren't using a scale that measured ounces,'' she said, ``or we could have had a mess.''
As it was, the winning fish was caught by Steve Wray of Virginia Beach on the boat Outriggers. Harvey Caldwell of Virginia Beach was second on the Fast Cast.
Third went to Wray's brother Mark Wray at 19.15 pounds, while Steve's son Dane Wray took the junior award at 7.70. They also were on the Outriggers.
The Chesapeake Bay striped bass season ended at midnight Sunday. But just before it closed, two of the season's biggest Virginia rockfish were registered at Bubba's Marina at Lynnhaven.
The largest, registered Sunday morning and apparently caught Saturday night, weighed 42 pounds, 7 ounces, and was claimed by Mitch Ackaway of Virginia Beach, fishing on the Zone N.
The other, caught Friday night and registered Saturday morning, weighed 42-0 and was caught by Randolph Grinnan of Norfolk. The name of the boat wasn't available.
Both fish were caught near the North Channel (high-level) bridge of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. They were the only two reported fish from Hampton Roads that earned citations during the past week from the Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament.
However, Bobby Carson of Hatteras, N.C., earned an award from the North Carolina Salt Water Tournament with a 5-10 speckled trout, pulled from the surf of Hatteras Island.
On the freshwater scene, Dean Pulley of Virginia Beach boated a 15-10 striped bass at Western Branch Reservoir in Suffolk, where H.K. Good of Chesapeake had a 15-1 striper. It takes a 20-pounder to earn a Virginia freshwater citation.
Steve Plude of Suffolk made the grade with an 8-2 largemouth bass, also at Western Branch, where Gus Fuller of Virginia Beach just missed with a largemouth that went 7-4. It takes an 8-pounder to win a citation. by CNB