JohnnieM
03-12-2007, 08:44 AM
As posted last week, me and 5 other bud's ran down to Va. Beach Saturday for a noon to 6pm trolling trip on the REEL ACTION with Capt. Jake out of Ruddee Inlet. I had called for updates on the fishing throughout the week and was told they're still doing quite well. Sat. was 65 degrees, sunny, little windy, but nice for early March. We started out with an hour+ run up the beach at least 30 miles to try a spot where another boat had "crushed" them that morning. Nothing showed up on the screen and after a little trolling we reeled up and ran back south to where we came out of the inlet. Overall about 3 hours of running to get back to where the birds were. The amount of bird play was incredible. Thousands of circling diving birds. We trolled the edges without success except for snagging 1 bunker. Moved again to the point of Va. Beach for dusk and finally got a 20 lb. striper with a fat belly that went into the box. Capt. kept us out an extra 45 minutes hoping that the bite was turning on at twilight w/o anything else taking the lures. Headed in after a nice day of running up and down the coast looking for the fish. Seems the mate confirmed the reports that we saw in the local fish wrappers - that the stripers had moved north recently. He even went so far as to say he bet that we'd have stripers off of Cape May in a week. Our trip can best be summed up by that dreaded phrase that we heard from people - - "you should have been here 2 weeks ago. We were crushing them." Oh well. For $500 plus tip it was well worth the attempt to share a sunny day w/ pop and some friends out on the water. Here they come...