
DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030882

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BOB HUTCHINSON, OUTDOORS EDITOR  

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  118 lines

STRIPER SEASON IS JUST A FEW TICKS AWAY FOR ROCKFISH ANGLERS AND THE MERCHANTS WHO SERVE THEM, 'TIS THAT TIME OF YEAR.

Thousands of Hampton Roads residents can hardly wait for the clock to strike 12:01 Saturday morning, marking the start of striper mania.

To John Trexler, a retired civil servant from Virginia Beach, it means a friend soon might be knocking on his front door with an offering of fresh fish.

For Malcolm Pine, owner of Sandy Point Tackle in Norfolk, it means brisk lure sales.

For Josie Hionis, part-owner of Bubba's Marina in Virginia Beach, it means great business for her boat-launching ramp.

And for Richard Welton of Virginia Beach and countless others, it means the start of their favorite fishing season.

``I go even when it's so cold that ice forms on the fishing line,'' said Welton, head of the Coastal Conservation Association of Virginia, the state's largest group of organized anglers. ``I love to bundle up and go out there and catch those fish. You can't beat it.''

After the season opens, some people will arrive at work red-eyed and fishy-smelling. Work and school absenteeism likely will increase.

Less than a decade ago, the striped bass was practically wiped out by excessive catches, the coastal population plummeting to an all-time low in recorded history.

But in Virginia, stripers are one of the great success stories in conservation. A two-year ban on all striper fishing from 1988 to 1990, followed by closely regulated fishing for the past seven years, combined with an apparent cyclic upswing, brought the fish back.

Nowhere is that more apparent than along the 17.6-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a striper-fishing Eden with few if any peers.

Much of the best Bridge-Tunnel action will come in the wee hours, with catches climbing steadily on into December, a month that historically has produced the season's biggest fish. Then, heavy stripers migrating down the Chesapeake will be joined by even heavier ones moving south from summer homes in New England.

So what is it about the striper, also known as rockfish, that causes such devotion?

``The striper has a mystique which transcends what it really is, which is just another pretty fish,'' said Claude Bain, director of the Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament. ``For one thing, it has a tremendous history. It helped sustain the earliest settlers from Massachusetts to Virginia through some really tough winters.''

In the early 1600s, Capt. John Smith wrote that stripers were so thick you could walk ``dry shod'' on the back of the fish from one shore of the James River to the other.

Said Bain: ``It's great to eat, it's fun and relatively easy to catch, it strikes hard and it gets big, with 30- and 40-pounders not uncommon.''

Striper season has a mighty impact on the area economy. Anthony Whitehurst of the 17th Street Tackle Shop in Virginia Beach estimates that there are 25,000 striper lures in his store. His shop normally opens at 8 a.m., but for striper season he'll open at 6.

Pine, of Sandy Point Tackle on Colley Avenue, said he'll keep later hours than usual for much of the striper season.

Rob Miller of the Sports Authority store at Janaf Shopping Center in Norfolk plans to add extra help.

``People have really been buying striper lures and tackle for the past couple of weeks,'' Miller said. ``It's one of our biggest seasons, not like Christmas but right up there with the run we had on athletic shoes at the start of the school year.''

Chesapeake Bay anglers will be restricted to keeping two fish a day in a season running through the end of the year. And the fish must be at least 18 inches long.

If anyone is thinking about keeping undersized stripers or exceeding the daily limit, a word of warning: The Virginia Marine Patrol and the Virginia Beach Police Department are watching closely.

``We'll have at least one boat (at the Bridge-Tunnel) almost every night, some nights two boats,'' said Lou Thurston, spokesman for the police department.

Steve Bowman, head of the Virginia Marine Patrol, said: ``This is a valuable resource and we'll be out there to protect it.''

As for Trexler, he isn't a striper fisherman but loves eating the fish. He likes it baked with onions and potatoes, with bacon strips across the fish.

``Talk about something good,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot

Malcolm Pine, owner of Sandy Point Tackle in Norfolk, stands before

a wall covered with striper lures and under the object of so much

attention.

Graphic

AT A GLANCE

The rules: In the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries,

18-inch minimum size, no maximum size, bag limit two fish per day.

In the Atlantic Ocean, out to 3 miles, minimum 28 inches, no

maximum, bag two per day. Both seasons run through Dec. 31. Beyond 3

miles, stripers illegal to keep.