Virginia Beach Fishing Report, Virginia Beach Striper Tag Return

I thought this was neat so I thought I would share. All through the month of may, we had a school of very nice stripers at the bridge tunnel that hung around much longer than that class of fish were supposed to be here. They were all 40-50'' class post spawn fish that were schooled up very tightly ready to migrate. They hung around for an entire month and if you didnt have them figured out, you werent gonna catch them. There were only one or two baits they would bite (not stretches, mojos, live eels, or live croaker) and if you didnt work those baits right, you wouldnt get bit. We caught a bunch of them and there were quite a few charters that went home with smiles and release citations. I had assumed that these fish were new england fish and the very last day that we fished for them, May 29, we caught a tagged fish. The tag was a red spaghetti tag that looked like it had been there for a while. The fish was a skinny, post spawn, very healthy, very strong, very hungry 40 inch fish that proved to be the very last striper caught for us in the fall 2008 through spring 2009 season. I called and reported the tag and about a week later I got the tag information in the mail. The tag was placed September 10th, 2003 in Massachusetts at Great Round Shoal. When the fish was originally tagged six years ago, it was 33.33'' long, so over the past six years, this fish grew almost 7 inches. Its very interesting when you think about how much ground these fish cover and how slowly they actually grow. Also, its nice to know that the tagging program does have success and that a tagged fish can live a healthy life and reproduce for those years.