2009
Upcoming Fishing Action!!!
There is a little chill in the air, Chesapeake Bay fisherman know what that means: The trolling bite for Fall Trophies will very soon be red hot! Looking forward to a few more weeks of excellent live lining using light tackle, then its time to chase the Trophies
Captains Log January ’09
1/27/2009-1/27/2009
VA Beach, VA
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
61 pounds and 4 oz. says it all!!!! The largest Striper ever landed on the MISS SUSIE or the FIN FINDER and the largest Striper I have ever seen. The monster of a fish bit a double rigged white parachute. The bait she ate was a 12 oz white parachute with a 12″ white shad. The lighter bait on the same double rig had a 34 inch fish hooked up at the same time. What a catch!!!!! I knew the fish was big, but I was not sure if it was heavier than my personal best 57.00 lbs which was landed in 2005. The scales at Rudee’s Inlet Station Marina proved this fish was my personal best. The fish measured 52 inches in length.
The fishing action down here in VA Beach continues to be very good. And we have a few slots still available…..
For a single day trip we have February 11th still open
For the two day package deal we have February 18/19 or February 24/25 still open.
Thanks and enjoy the pics of a really special fish…
Capt. Greg Buckner
1/2/2009-1/7/2009
VA Beach, VA
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
Our 2008 Chesapeake Bay Season ended with a bang with some of the finest Trophy Striper fishing known to mankind. The fall trophy season this past year was without a doubt one of the best fall trophy seasons most can remember. Lots of big fish close to home, it just doesn’t get much better. Since the Chesapeake Bay season closes on December 31 and the fishing action is red hot in VA Beach, Virginia we move operations to the still open season waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Our first trip of 2009 was on January 2nd and the Trophy fish were biting very good. We have fished every day since the 2nd and had great catchOur 2008 Chesapeake Bay Season ended with a bang with some of the finest Trophy Striper fishing known to mankind. The fall trophy season this past year was without a doubt one of the best fall trophy seasons most can remember. Lots of big fish close to home, it just doesn’t get much better.
Since the Chesapeake Bay season closes on December 31 and the fishing action is red hot in VA Beach, Virginia we move operations to the still open season waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Our first trip of 2009 was on January 2nd and the Trophy fish were biting very good. We have fished every day since the 2nd and had great catches. The multiple hook ups are common down here and it is also frequent that we have every rod loaded up with two big fish. We have not been able to get into the fish jigging, but we have 6 brand new, light tackle jigging combos ready to go. Below I have a few pics to give a taste of how good fishing from VA Beach is right now.
As for dates available, due to cancellation I now have the combo dates of January 21 and January 22 available for charter. This 2 day package deal is for 6 passengers and includes the following….
2 full day charters
tip for the first mate
fish cleaning (2 Stripers over 28 inches per person per day)
2 nights stay with 3 hotel rooms for the nights before each trip (two beds per room)
breakfast at the hotel
All of this for just $365 per person
Additional dates available for this package deal are February 3/4 and February 24/25. Dates available for single day charter are February 11 and February 15.
Don’t miss out choose from the above dates and book your trip to remember now.
Thanks and Happy New Year,
Capt. Greg Buckner (301) 873-1327es. The multiple hook ups are common down here and it is also frequent that we have every rod loaded up with two big fish. We have not been able to get into the fish jigging, but we have 6 brand new, light tackle jigging combos ready to go. Below I have a few pics to give a taste of how good fishing from VA Beach is right now. As for dates available, due to cancellation I now have the combo dates of January 21 and January 22 available for charter. This 2 day package deal is for 6 passengers and includes the following…. 2 full day charters tip for the first mate fish cleaning (2 Stripers over 28 inches per person per day) 2 nights stay with 3 hotel rooms for the nights before each trip (two beds per room) breakfast at the hotel All of this for just $365 per person Additional dates available for this package deal are February 3/4 and February 24/25. Dates available for single day charter are February 11 and February 15. Don’t miss out choose from the above dates and book your trip to remember now.
Thanks and Happy New Year,
Capt. Greg Buckner (301) 873-1327
Captains Log August 08′
The Spanish are here!!!!!!!! The Spanish Mackeral arrived in abundant numbers just a few days ago. Yesterday we targeted them for about 3 hours and landed 49 between 15 inches and 26 inches. While trolling for the Spanish Mackeral we also landed a good handful of small (eating sized) Blues and Rockfish. The Spanish Mackeral should stick around our area thru all of September and with the good numbers already here this should be a great early fall season for the Macs. The bottom fishing for Spot in the Patuxent River slowed early in August, but over the last few days has heated up to the wide open status. In fact today (8/19) we ran an afternoon bottom fishing trip and in less than 3 hours of fishing our crew of 7 anglers had landed 439 large and Jumbo Spot.
The nighttime fishing for Croakers was excellent thru 8/13 with limits of 25 per man almost every night, but since then the bite has slowed as it does normally in late August. Because of the slowing and seemingly inconsistant Croaker bite, we have ran our last nighttime Croaker trip for the 2008 season on 8/18. The live lining for Rockfish stayed very good thru late last week and since then has been a little hit or miss. And with the massive numbers of breaking fish available we have been spending much of our time chasing Mackeral, Blues and Rockfish trolling and casting lures. The Live Linning will heat back up any day now and as soon as mid September gets here the Rockfish will migrate to structure and be very easy to target with live Spot. The excellent live linning will continue thru late October, in fact last year we caught good numbers of fish over 30 inches on live bait thru the first week of November.
The larger Bluefish from 4 to 8 lbs have finally arrived to their feeding grounds and are biting very good, especially in the afternoons. Last Friday afternoon we landed 130 Bluefish from 4 to 8 lbs in less than 2 hours time. This hot Bluefish bite should continue until the second or third week of October.
Don’t miss out on the red hot fall fishing we have the next two months, book your charter today!!!
Dates Available……….
August AM dates: 22, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31
August PM dates: 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29
September AM dates: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30
September PM dates: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30
Thanks and enjoy the photos,
Capt. Greg Buckner
Captains Log July 08′
7/4/2008-7/29/2008
Solomons Island Area
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
Since returning from fishing down South fishing has been incredible with the exception of one trip. The live linning for Stripers has been excellent, with fish being consistantly caught between 18 and 35 inches. The evening Croaker fishing has also been very good with limits (25 per man) being caught almost every night. The day time bottom fishing for Spot and Perch has been fairly good.
Starting a few days ago we have been seeing several schools of breaking/feeding fish. These schools have both Rockfish and Blues in them. We have been catching fish in these schools casting topwater lures into the breaking schools, live baits are also working well in these schools.
We will be live linning for Stripers until late October or early November, the breaking fish will be good for the next two months. The PM Croaker bite will stay strong until about the third week in August. Before school starts again, take your kids fishing they will remember it forever. We specialize in family trips, and are very patient and entertaining when it come to ensuring the kids and their parents have a great trip.
AM charters available:
August 1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 28, 30, 31
PM charters available:
August 1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 28, 30
Enjoy the pics below and sorry for the delayed report,
Capt. Greg Buckner (301) 873-1327
6/24/2008-7/3/2008
Chesapeake Bridge Tunnel Area
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
From June 24 th thru July 3rd we fished the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Area. We targeted Cobia, Red Drum and Spadefish. The Cobia and Red Drum bite was not very impressive this year. We only managed to hook 8 Cobia and land 6 of them. Our two largest Cobia landed were 78.6 lbs and 57.3lbs. We also landed 14 Red Drum all of which were over 30 lbs, with a few over 45 lbs. 10 of our 14 Red Drum were landed within about 2 hours time, it was awesome. At one point we had three trophy sized Reds hooked up at one time. The Spadefishing was good and we landed our limit on most trips (5 per man). They are are hard fighting fish that looks like an Angelfish and are a ton of fun on light tackle.
Enjoy the pics below and sorry for the delay,
Capt. Greg Buckner
Captains Log June 08′
6/12/2008-6/23/2008
Solomons Island Area
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
Finally the Spot are here, actually they are two weeks early and that means live linning time. We set out on June 12th with Bloodworms to catch a live well full of Spot and we did just that. And then we took the fresh caught live Spot for a little ride to where we had been catching Rockfish trolling for the last few weeks and I anchored the boat up on a small school of Rockfish and we put our live baits over the side and began live linning. It took about 30 minutes to get the first bite and then it was game on!!!!!!!
We had Rockfish from 20 inches to 35 inches being caught as fast and as good as it gets. As soon as a bait was in the water and 5 or 10 feet down it was gobbeled up by a hungry Striper. This fast and furious action continued until I heaed south to Hampton, VA in search for Cobia and Red Drum. The Croaker fishing got more consistant than it was in early June and the size of the fish also improved.
Enjoy the pics below and sorry for the delay,
Capt. Greg Buckner
5/22/2008-6/11/2008
Solomons Island Area
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
May 22nd was our first day of light tackle chumming in 2008, we had a great catch with several fish over 28 inches. The AM of the 22nd proved to be a fluke sine our success chumming slowed to a crawl with the exception of that AM. With the chum bite slow we then switced to trolling smaller baits and some jigging to cath our limits of Striped Bass (Rockfish) from 18 inches to 35 inches. The small bait trolling and jigging produced well for us we will be trying live linning as soon as the Spot are here.
May 25th was our first PM Croaker trip and we did so so, catching 80 or so Croakers mostly smalls to mediums. For the next two weeks we had mostly good luck on the Croakers catching our limit or very close to our limit on most nights. A few nights conditions were not great and the Croaker bite was slow.
Please enjoy the pics below and sorry for the long delay,
Capt. Greg Buckner
Captains Log May 08′
5/8/2008-5/19/2008
Solomons Island Area
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
The Trophy Trolling bite has been good for the last two weeks with our limit being filled on 13 out of 15 charters from May 8 to May 19. The weather was challenging and caused us to cancel several trip due to very high winds. Our PM charter on May 8th was the best bite this entire Spring. When we trolled over a large school of Trophy Stripers we had 26 lines in the water, after we had made two passes over the school we only had two lines still in the water. It was absolute chaos with as many as 9 lines down at one time and several of these lines had two trophy rockfish hooked up at once. Monday May 19th was the last day we trolled for the Trophy Stripers with our full Spring Spread of 26 lines and we did ok landing 8 out of our needed 9 trophies on an afternoon charter.
4/25/2008-5/7/2008
Solomons Island Area
By Greg Buckner, Captain of the “Miss Susie”
The streak continues………… 19 days, 2 charters per day and we have landed our limit every trip. Many days we have had 10 to 16 passengers on board and still we have caught our fish. A few days we have had to work hard to finish out our limit, but for the vast majority of our trips it is a question of how many Trophy Stripers did we catch and release on our way to our limit. Today (5/7/2008) for instance we landed 20 Trophy Stripers over 32 inches on our AM charter and we landed 22 Trophies on our PM charter. We have been catching 2 to 6 Trophy Rockfish over 40 inches per trip. I strongly believe that the excellent Trophy bite will continue into late May. Once the Trophy Trolling bite slows to a hault, we will switch gears and begin using light tackle to target Stripers from 18 inches to 40 inches with jigging and chumming. And begening late May we will begin night/evening charters for Rockfish and Blues and as the sun sets Croakers. June is also a great month for PM rock, blues and croaker trips. Then June 24th thru early July we will be fishing from Salt Ponds Marina in Hampton, VA (Bay Bridge Tunnel area) for Cobia, Red Drum and Spadefish. All of these hard fighting species are targeted while on anchor with spinning rods and reels. Please call for details about these trips out of Hampton, VA.
As for dates available for charter……….
May 18 am or pm, 19 am, 20 pm, 21 am, 23 am, 26 am, 27 am, 28am, 29 am, 30 am, 31 am
Dates available for evening Rock, Blues and Croaker charters departing at 4pm…….
May 26, 27, 28
June 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18
Thanks to all who follow my fishing report,
Capt. Greg Buckner
Captains Log April 08′
The 2008 Chesapeake Bay Season has begun. And the fishing action has been excellent. Our pre season, light tackle, catch and release trips went very well with great catches and very satisfied customers. Our best pre season charter produced 32 trophy Stripers over 28 inches, and our slowest trip produced 9 Trophies. Our average Pre Season, Light Tackle Trophy Trip produced 20 to 22 Striped Bass over 28 inches. Our largest fish landed on light tackle in the Pre Season was 45 inches long and weighed 39 lbs.
Our 2008 catch and keep Trophy Rockfish Season opened on Saturday April 19th and fishing has been excellent since its opening. The bite was a little slower over the weekend because of the heavy fishing pressure from all the boats on the water, but since Monday April 21st the fishing action has been world class. It has not been a question of are we going to get our limit, but a question of how many Trophy Stripers are we going to catch and release while filling our limit in search of bubba. For instance, Thursday April 24th we landed 28 Trophy Stripers on our AM charter and on our PM charter we landed 31 Trophy Stripers. The red hot Trophy Striper fishing should stay very good for at least the next 2 to 3 weeks. Then as the Trophy Trolling bite slows we will switch gears and begin doing some light tackle chumming mid to late May to go after the very last Trophy fish to leave the Bay. We will also begin our PM charters for Rockfish, Bluefish and Croaker in late May. On these PM charters, we depart from Solomons at 4 pm and fish for Rock and Blues until the suns begins to set, and then we switch up and target Croakers as evening sets in. These PM trips are great fun and we normally come home loaded with our limit of Rockfish from 18inches to 35inches and a good catch of Blues as well as our limit of Croaker (25 per man).
If you are interested in a Trophy Rockfish Charter, these are the dates still available for charter on my other boat FIN FINDER:
April 30 AM
May 6 AM or PM, May 7 PM, May 8 AM, May 9PM, May 12 AM or PM, May 13 AM or PM
If you are interested in a PM Rock/Blues and Croaker Charter, these are the dates available for charter aboard the MISS SUSIE departing the dock at 4pm:
May 26, 27, 28, 30
June 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18
If you are interested in a light tackle chumming or a late Spring season Trophy Striper Charter aboard the MISS SUSIE, these are the dates still available:
For AM charters….
May 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
June 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
Thanks to all of those who follow my fishing report and I look foward to fishing with all of you in 2008,
Capt. Greg