Virginia Beach Fishing Report, Virginia Beach Big Rockfish

11/31/08 - Saturday afternoon Connor called me and told me the McNulty family was in town and he ruined his lower unit. So he asked if he could get his stuff together and get out there on Matador. The tuna master Bill Funk was also in. My wife, Jocelyn, was gonna go also but she woke up feeling under the weather and couldnt go. So we set out in the afternoon at some point headed for the mouth of the Chesapeake to try to catch a couple fish during the last little bit of daylight before settling in to the bridge to do some eeling. Though it was cold, foggy, and rainy, the wind was calm and we were all completely comfortable. First place we set down was towards Nautilus shoal. Doggies raped us. Next spot was over by the high rise. More doggies. Next was up to buoy 18. No doggies, but no rockfish either. So as it started to get dark, we moved over towards the bridge. While waiting for the tide to get right, we caught a 42'' fish and missed another bite or two. We set anchor close to the 9' shoal and once the tide got right, it was ON! We caught quite a few fish, almost all around 40#. There were singles caught, a double, and the highlight of the trip was a triple caught with all three hooked underneath the boat with less than twenty feet of line out. Bill was tending two rods that were freelined straight down and both of those went off simultaneously, and while hooked up on those, Cullen went to set a bait out and before he could get it drifting backwards, he hooked up. All the fish were on light tackle and ran these guys all over the back of the boat. We landed all three and all three were over 45'' with Bill's fish being the biggest at 47'' and 42#8oz. We caught a couple more after that as the wind began to pick up out of the southeast. We made an early evening out of it and pulled lines for the short ride home at about 8 pm. Our six fish limit weighed over 200#. Pics to come.
The fishing is only gonna get bet over the next couple weeks and I still have plenty of charter dates available, including night time eel fishing charters.