Chesapeake Bay Fishing Reports

It looks like the 2011 Spring Trophy Season is going to be an excellent one, with great catches on day one and day two.  Colder water temps and an abundance of bait in our waters should ensure that our stock of migratory Trophy Striped Bass will be in our area for a while (hopefully till late May).  Our Spring Trophy Schedule is almost completely full with only the following slots available……….

May 8 @ 6am

May 9 @ 6am

May 10 @ 6am or 1pm

Aboard my other boat FIN FINDER we have a few additional dates available including APRIL 22 @ 6am.

Starting June we will begin our mixed bag evening trips where we depart Solomons around 3pm and first catch Rockfish and Bluefish and as the sun begins to set, we load up on big Croaker using light tackle.  These trips are a blast and we regularly return to port with 150 to 300 fish and often 3 or 4 species of fish.

Don’t forget to check us out on Face Book.  At the present I do have a MISS SUSIE CHARTERS FaceBook page, but due to difficulties with using my DROID to post updates, I am now using my personal Face Book page to provide “live” as it happens pics and updates.  Please visit my GREGORY BUCKNER Face Book Page to follow the action.

Hope to see you on the water!!!!!!!!!!!

Capt. Greg Buckner

On December 17th, 2004, Miss Susie and crew headed south to try the late December striper fishing at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. During the days that followed, we sought to learn the new waters and charter a few light tackle fishing trips. First mate Francis Zell brought a good deal of CBBT light tackle jigging experience to the boat, as he has fished these waters for the past five Decembers. The overall fishing was great with the only two inconsistencies being the presence of big fish (28″ +) and the weather. When the wind blows hard around the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the water gets unbelieveably rough and because of this, we spent a few days of our trip cruising around Virginia Beach and relaxing in our hotel rooms. Opportunities for good success with light tackle jigging were hit or miss; although the CBBT’s massive amount of structure nomally holds good numbers of 25″ to 40″ fish, the fish that we able to consistently find in good numbers were 16″ to 25″.

The exception was two days of fishing when we found huge schools of large fish feeding on the surface south of the CBBT. During these two days, we experienced the most awesome light tackle striper fishing available to mankind. The most successful method was to ease the boat into a school of breaking fish, cut the engines off, and cast into the frenzied waters. It was quite an amazing experience to witness the huge stripers chasing the baitfish on the surface. Our tackle consisted of largemouth bass-class spinning rods and reels spooled with 10# Berkely Fireline, 20# flourocarbon leaders, top-water poppers, and 5″-7″ plastic baits fished on 1oz. jigheads. The photos below this report show some of the excitement and amazing fish that we caught.

The Miss Susie’s first trip to Virginia Beach was an enjoyable one, but it is yet to be decided whether we will return next December due to the severe weather and inconsitent presence of bigger fish we experienced on this trip. However, if I have enough interest from clients who wish to try this late-season light tackle jigging at the CBBT we could give it a try again in 2005. To put things into perspective, a bad day of fishing for three of us resulted in 150-200 stripers (16″-25″), tons of fun on light tackle.

November has been a interesting month on the Chesapeake Bay. The big fish bite was good for a few days early and then the bite got really slow for about a week, there were a few days where the high boat at the charter dock only had 3 or 4 fish. The 18th and the 19th were good days. The 20th was slow and we did not fish Nov.21 thru Nov. 25 because of high winds and the West Virginia Rifle Season for deer.

We were back at it on the 26th and 27th and fishing was good. We caught 5 overs and 1 under on Saturday and on Sunday we captured 6 overs.

Today (11-28-05) we had our best bite of the Fall Trophy season. We had 11 fish hooked up and landed 7 overs and 1 under all before 11am. The reports I heard from way down the Bay today were also very good, which means we have fish moving this way. The fishing really does now seem to be getting better every day. I think this will be a December to remember.

Even with a few slow days and a few windy days, we really can’t complain about November. Especially since we boated the two largest Stripers we have ever caught. If you want to get in on the action and catch some December Trophy Rockfish give us a call we still have Dec. 19——–22 available for charter.

The big fish are officially here. On Wed. the 9th we landed 5 Trophies over 28″ and two under 28″.

And today 11/11/2005 we caught 6 over 28″ and one under. Two of the “over fish” were huge fish. One of them even broke my personal best from last Friday (55.4lbs). The other trophy was 48″ long and weighed right around 45 lbs.

The “BUBBA” was an impressive 52″ in length and weighed 57.00 lbs. Here are some photos that showcase an awesome day of fishing on the Bay.

If you want your shot at a fish of a lifetime this Fall, we still have Wednesday 12/13, Thursday 12/14 & Monday 12/19———–Thursday 12/22 available for charters. Give us a call; we would love to hook you up with the “Big One”.

As suspected the cooler water of fall finally slowed the Live-Lining bite. On 10-24-05 we struggled to catch fish as the Rockfish suddenly seemed to not want Live Spot. We came close to our limit but could not catch them all. A huge change considering we had been catching our limit in less than one hour for over a month. On <10-26-05 we scratched out our limit using live Spot. 10-26/ 10-27/ 10-28 we switched back to chumming and did well catching our limits in about 3 or 4 hours each day. The fish ranged from (18" to 26").

On 10-30-05 we headed way South looking for a Trophy and struck out due to rough seas and lack of Trophy fish. So we gave up the hunt and went trolling for the smaller shallow water fish and did very well, quickly catching our limit of Rockfish from 19″ to 29″. November 2 we did the same thing and caught the smaller shallow water fish and then went White Perch fishing and caught over 200 Perch. Half of these were big enough to be worth cleaning.

On 11-03-05 we started in the shallow water and caught our limit of small rock, leaving one spot open for a Trophy. Then we put our big stuff on and went trolling for bubba, and we caught one a Nice 41″ Trophy. We followed the same game plan on 11-04 and did exactly the same thing except BUBBA really was BUBBA (55.4lbs, 53″ length, 31″ Girth). The Largest Rockfish I have ever caught in my life.

So after catching that huge fish, I decided to give all day efforts for the big fish over the weekend (11-05 & 11-06). It was a good decision. On Saturday we had 8 Bites from Trophy fish and landed 6 Trophies. On Sunday we had 6 Bites and landed 7 Trophies. That’s right we had the first double hitter of the Fall a 35″ and a 36″.

The big fish seem to be showing up more and more daily. I look foward to a great late fall season. I still have one date in late November and a few dates in mid December available. If you want a chance to catch a once in a lifetime Rockfish give us a call.

The Fishing over the last four weeks for Rockfish has been excellent. We have been using live Spot and easily catching our limit of two Rockfish over 18″ per person. In fact the fishing has been so good that it is taking less than hour to catch our fish. Since “live lined” Rockfish take the baits so deep we don’t do much catch and release because the fish normally will not survive.

After catching our limits of Rock we have been doing a few different types of fishing, somedays that would be trolling for Bluefish which for a couple of days turned out to be very successful and as of the last two weeks has not been very effective, as the Bluefish seemed to do a dissapearing act. We have also been doing some light tackle casting and jigging over breaking fish. This is a lot of fun and since trolling for Blues has not been effictive lately it is a nice way to make a good all day trip. The jigging and casting has been producing lots of small rockfish (12″ to 19″) and a few small bluefish (10″ to 14″), both of which put up a great fight on light tackle.

And of course we have been ending each trip with a little bottom fishing to catch bait (small Spot) for the next day’s charter. The small Spot have been biting well, but the larger Spot have made their move South and left our area.

Things will start changing rapidly with these falling temperatures. The live lining bite will soon come to a hault and we will have to switch over to chumming and/or trolling. And any day we should start catching some of the Big (28″ to 40″) resident rockfish as the colder water moves them from their shallow water summer haunts. Also within a week or two we should see the first of the Trophy Migratory Rockfish as they make their move down the coast and up the Bay. If you want to catch a fish of a lifetime give us a call NOW!! Only a few dates still open for November and December Trophy Fishing.

Friday May 27 was our last day of catching the Trophy Rockfish trolling. On that day, we easily caught our limit or trophies on both our AM and PM trips. The very next day, we caught plenty of fish trolling, but nothing over 28″ and the story was the same for most other boats. So, for our afternoon trip on Saturday, May 28, we switched gears and broke out our light tackle rods and started chumming. It was a great move, we had great light tackle action with plenty of rockfish from 18″ to 28″. That night, we bottom fished for croaker for the first time of the year and had a good catch with close to 100 croaker from 11″ to 18″, one 14″ sea trout, and 1 12″ bluefish. Every trip since that first day of light tackle fishing has been excellent, with plenty of keeper rockfish in the chum slick and great croaker fishing every evening. We even caught our first keeper flounder of the season on 6/1/05. It was a 24″ slab. It looks like this summer will have plenty of great light tackle fishing for us in the months ahead.