Update: What's Coming

Been a little busy lately and besides, the fishing, at least for me, has been pretty slow; when we’ve been able to fish that is. Couple weeks ago we planned to run off shore in search of Sea Bass. Change in forecast first thing in the morning put a change in our plan. Instead, we stayed in the lower Bay searching for the Flat Fish (Flounder).

Throughout the day we probably boated a couple dozen fish in all but only had 3 legal keepers over the 19” minimum. We fished from the 1st Island all the way over to the Eastern Shore and back again. We looked around some for Cobia but didn’t see any.

Next up on my list is the annual Wish-a-Fish event. (www.wishafish.org) The Wish-a-Fish mission is to “provide a little relief for a family from the daily stress of having a child with ‘special needs’… by taking the entire family out for a day of fun and fishing on the water.” This Saturday is the day for this year’s event. My regular Ho, Bill, will once again join me in this worthy cause. A captain can’t have a much better Ho than Bill. Not only does he know his way around a boat, how to rig lines and bait hooks, he is also a talker. So he takes care of the kids as well as keeps the parents engaged. Or asleep! Guess it depends on what side of the fence you’re on.

With all seriousness, this is a great event and a great time for these kids. I’ll post some pictures and a report after Saturday but until then, here are a couple pictures of Michael and Hanna from our last two events.

One final thought, this blog is called “Attitude Outdoors” and that means not only fishing, but hunting as well. And hunting is just around the corner. Bow season will start on Oct 4th here in Virginia. We know you don’t mind seeing dead fish; hopefully dead Deer and Turkey won’t bother you either. Stay tuned.

I’m joining a new hunt club this year,(Lonesome Three Hunting & Fishing Club.) I'm staying with my current club as well but this new club is just 3 miles from the one I’m in now and they have almost 3000 acres. More land means more Deer and Turkey. As important; this new club has a real club house with running water, electricity, bathrooms, showers, bedrooms and a full kitchen. I will attempt to keep this blog updated with both fishing and hunting reports throughout the winter season.

First Cobia

So let me set the stage. I have given a couple half-assed attempts at catching these fish over the last few years. All attempts proved to be nothing but hours of boredom. I'll explain. The way most people fish for Cobia is to get a couple gallons of chum, anchor out in one of the many "hot" spots, set one bucket of chum down on the bottom and hang the other off the bow near the surface. Take 4 or more lines rigged with various type bait; live Eel, live or dead Spot, Croaker or Blue Fish and maybe a Crab or two. Set them out at various depths, find a comfortable place to sit, open a beer and wait. And wait! And wait!

Well, if you know me, you know how much I hate sitting around waiting. There's only so much talking that a group of guys can do in one day. I don't necessarily have to be catching non-stop, but I sure has hell have to be moving around looking for the fish. Which brings me to the brief story as to how I came upon my first and Yes, second Cobia.

Each year for the last 3 or so I have been asked to fish in this Grady White owners tournament. But Bret, you own a Sailfish not a Grady. True enough. However, my neighbor owns a Grady. So last weekend was the tournament. Our plan (his plan) was to catch Spanish Mac's in the morning, look for some live Spot for bait then go after Flounder. If we were to run across a Cobia swimming leisurely along the surface of the water, we'd have a rod ready to toss something at it.

After a couple hours of trolling with just 2 Spanish Mac's to show for our effort, we decided to take a detour into Rudee Inlet for bait. I threw the 8 foot cast net a couple time near the rock jetty but only came up with Pin Fish. Looking off into a little deeper water, I see this Asian guy with a 10 or 12 foot net catching load after load of nice Spot. Ah, that’s what we’re looking for. So I tell my Captain, “move the boat out a little further where that Asian guy is.” Him (my Captain), being the owner of a Grady White, I knew he’d have no problem pushing his way through the maze of boats. And he didn’t. Have any problem with it, that is.

One cast of the net and we had all the Spot we could use for the day. Off we went, but instead of running back into the bay for Flounder, we decided to visit the buoy line about 3.5 miles off the beach and look for Cobia. Somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd buoy, we came across a Hammerhead shark. It tried to hook itself on my rig but once it got everything but the head, it took off. Then we see our quarry. A couple Cobia circling around a buoy. We threw live Spot and also bucktails at the fish but they didn’t want anything we had to offer.

Couple buoys later we find another Cobe. This one was also finicky, but once I put the live Spot next to it's head, it turned on it and took the bait. After a very brief (unlike this story) fight, in comes a little 25” pup of a Cobia. But hey, It was my FIRST!! I couldn’t be happier.

Fast forward to day 2 of this tournament. We spend hours looking for and cast netting bait then head out in search of Flounder. No love with the Flounder so we look around the 2nd and 3rd Islands for Cobia. Saw one but it spooked before we could get close enough to throw a bait at him. This time, I was armed with 6 lively and fresh Eels that I bought on the ride in. Long story short! (Yeah, as if that’s possible at this point!) Any way, we move on towards the Highrise of the CBBT slowly with the Captain’s son on the hardtop and me on the bow looking for Cobia. Finally, we see one. Dead ahead just swimming along on the surface without a care in the world. I cast the Eel out to him and he ignores it. Cast again and he turns on it but quickly moves back away. We continue our pursuit. On the 4th or 5th cast, I set the Eel directly in front of him and he Slams it. I feed him some line, flip the bail, check the drag then start reeling.

After a relatively and unexpectedly short fight, we net a nice 47” Cobia. My second but also my first keeper. We found one more fish but again, it took off before we could get a bait to him. I will also point out that this fish took 2nd place in the tournament. It weighed in at 28.7 lbs. Now, I plan to marinade it in some Italian dressing or maybe sesame ginger dressing and place it on the Grill for my big fish fry this Saturday. Yum, Yum!!!

Thanks for reading, hope I didn’t bore you too much. Sorry for the picture but it’s the best I have right now. Other pictures were taken but they haven’t been sent to me yet.

Next report will probably come later next week. I think I’m taking the wife, daughter and my daughter’s boyfriend out fishing on Tuesday. I’ll let you know how that goes. I have to promise to bring the boyfriend back in! :)

Reelaxing

Reelaxing

That's the kind of day it was. No pressures, no traffic, simply - no worries. We didn’t light the world on fire but we did have a nice enjoyable day. I don't think we even saw another boat until we came surfing back in. Today’s crew was Bill of Usual Suspects Fame and Jimmy aka Beancounter. If you ever need a crooked Accountant to handle your taxes, Jimmy’s your man. Kidding of course!

Fished a handful of wrecks and structure out and around the 10 Fathom wreck. Never saw 10 fathoms of water but hey, if that’s what Bill wants to call it, who am I to argue? Here’s a close up of one of the Knot Heads we caught.

And YES, if you're wondering, I'm talking about the Sea Bass, Not the old knot head holding it!

Had a hard time finding the larger class fish and finally gave up, then worked, I mean, Surfed our way back into the bay to finish up with some Spades. Jimmy and Bill worked for them while I held the boat off the pylons. Jimmy had the hot hand and Bill, well, I'll let him speak for himself.

After a fun day of fishing, a few very sore ribs, watching Jimmy take a dive (inside the boat), watching Bill tease the Spades and logging a hundred miles for the day, here's a final shot of the box.

Thanks for the company guys!

Weekday Trip

Two More Species Checked Off the List

I took the day off last Thursday to see if I could beat the crowds and catch a limit of Spade Fish, because once the word gets out that these fish have arrived at the “Tower” (Chesapeake Light Tower), everyone, and I mean everyone flocks to the Tower on the weekends to fight these tasty critters. To top it off, they are a whole lot of fun to catch. You see, pound for pound these guys provide some serious pullage. Not only will they wear your arms out after catching a half dozen of them, they can flat out destroy a second rate reel.

Problem with fishing during the week is trying to find someone to fish with you. Fortunately, I’m of the age that I now have friends in the retirement community. My regular Ho (Bill) falling into that category. Now before anyone takes offense to the word “Ho”, let me assure you it’s not meant as an insult. This is a label adopted in our local fishing community over the years for people that primarily fish on other peoples boats. Kind of like Mate. Although I’m not sure how they relate. After all, a Ho, in its original definition, is someone that’s paid for a special type of service-- yes? A boat Ho isn’t paid. He/she meets you at the boat, loads up their gear and then spends the day fishing with you. Furthermore, a boat Ho that expects to be invited back will usually offer to split the cost associated with the days fishing. A really good boat Ho will bring food and drink for the Capt and all boat Ho’s are expected to help with the clean-up duties at the end of the day.

So now that we all know what a Ho means to the local fishing community, I’ll continue with the better-late-than-never report from our trip last Thursday. We launched the boat around 9am at the Crab Creek ramp in Virginia Beach. On the way to the Tower, we decided to troll around the Cape for some Blue Fish to be used later in the day for Flounder bait. We caught 3 Blues and 1 legal Spanish Mackerel then picked up our lines and made the run out to the Tower. That, by the way, was the first Spanish Mackerel caught on the new boat. One more species to cross off my list http://members.cox.net/brarnold/Species%20List.doc in my quest to catch one of every local species before the end of the year. Off to the Tower.

After pushing our way through a heavy sea, dropping at least once, off the top of a nice 6 foot swell, we arrive to find maybe 14 boats anchored around the Tower. We picked us a spot and dropped anchor. After 4 or 5 unsuccessful attempts at sticking the anchor, we finally get a good set and we settle in for some fun.

It took a little while but after watching other boats catching, we finally hooked up. However, not before switching out the rig I was using for one with a long, fluorocarbon leader. I now have another species to scratch off my list.

Bill wasn’t doing as well. I kept telling him to switch over to the fluorocarbon leader but he’s a stubborn old coot. He finally caught a couple fish but I really believe the visibility, or in my case, invisibility of the fluorocarbon made the difference. After all, the water was extremely clear.

After playing around with the Spade Fish for a few hours we decided to drift a few wrecks sunken around the Tower area to see if we could boat any keeper Sea Bass. While there were plenty of Sea Bass to catch, only one made the length legal to keep. We ended the day searching for a Striper and then a legal Flounder. Didn’t do all that well on either, so we loaded the boat and headed home.

I almost forgot. As you may or may not know, we have a very active military presence here in SE Virginia and they often are found performing maneuvers in much of the same locations we anglers like to play. Here are a couple pictures of two Navy Seal go-fast boats that decided to take a high-speed lap out to the tower and back to shore.

An impressive craft for sure, but not much for fishing.

After cleaning the boat and cleaning the fish, which by the way, always seems to take the same amount of time no matter how many fish we catch. You see, Bill, while being a professional boat Ho, is also a master at filleting fish, so he heads to my fish cleaning table while I start washing the boat. Once he’s done cleaning fish, I’d expect that he help finish up with the boat. Whether we bring home 2 fish or 2 dozen fish, he always seems to finish cleaning our catch about the same time I finish with the boat. Yeah, I know! Strange coincidence isn’t it?

My neighbor tried to get a picture of Bill one night on one of the extremely rare trips where we didn’t catch anything that could be kept. It was rumored that Bill had a rag in his hand and was wiping down the boat. Wouldn’t you know it, the picture came out blank.

So that’s the trip. Nothing overly exciting happened this day. We didn’t have any notable mishaps to report. Just a nice day on the water doing what we love. Now I will be boat-less for the next week or two while she’s in for service and warranty work. I’ve been offered rides on other boats while mine is in the shop so it looks like I’ll be changing rolls from Captain to temporary boat Ho for a while. If so, I’ll be sure to post the results.

Weekend Fishing Report

The Crew:

• Capt. Bill
• Kerry
• Dave (Mr. Whiteboots)
• and myself

The Boat: The Attitude
Target Fish: Sea Bass

After watching the Marine Weather-Guessers forecast all week long, we assembled a crew to once again go hunt Black Sea Bass. This time, a little further off-shore. With forecasts all week long of low winds and relatively calm seas for Sunday, I was looking forward to a nice smooth ride within 50 miles of the shoreline. Of course, come Saturday, the Weatherguessers started tweaking the forecast. It’s almost as if the Weatherguessers are in cahoots with all of the businesses that count on weekend tourists, weekend anglers, campers, boaters, surfers, sun worshipers and fare-weather shoppers.

Before you say “that’s just crazy talk”, think about it! I’m not normally one of those conspiracy theorist types, but I can’t think of any other reason why Weatherguessers start off the first half of every week with an upcoming weekend forecast of beautiful, sunny and in my case, low wind and low seas forecast. Then some time between Thursday afternoon and very early Saturday morning, after all the plans are made and all the reservations are set, the forecast goes to crap. Too late! The plans are set, the reservations are made and in many cases, deposits have been paid. See what I mean?

Enough of that crazy talk. I think I’m going to work on a post specifically on the subject of Weatherguessers, their accuracy and what might be done to incentivize or otherwise motivate them to develop tools that make them much more accurate. Any and all suggestions are welcome! More to come.

On to the report: As commented on above, the Saturday morning forecast had changed and the small craft advisory had been extended into Saturday night. Not to worry. It was to be lifted by 1am Sunday morning. Another check Saturday night found the small craft advisory had not been lifted, but surprise! It had been extended to 6am Sunday morning. However, the sea-state prediction was only calling for 3 to 4 foot seas with an 8 second period and winds were out of the SW. If nothing else, we could stay closer to land. Either way it should be manageable and it was supposed to get even nicer as the morning progressed.

Fast forward to 6am Sunday morning. I have 2 neighbors in my driveway and one other crew member that drives 2 hours from Richmond, waiting for a fishing trip. Boat’s hooked up to the truck, fish boxes are both loaded with ice. Lunch, drinks, tackle and rods are all onboard so we’re not going to disappoint. After all, why did I buy this new boat if I can’t handle a 4 foot sea? We head to the ramp.

When we get to the ramp 2 other boats were sitting in front of them, still on their trailers. Seems one of them, a little Sea Hunt, had tried to make it to the tower but gave up, turned around and came back in. The other guy, hearing the Sea Hunt's story, decided not to launch. We however, continued on. I figured, what the heck, let’s at least stick the bow out past the jetty and see for ourselves. Let me tell you, my big - little Sailfish did right-well (that’s Southern speak for she did a great job) in the 4 to 6 foot rollers.

We made our way out averaging 25mph. Not a bad ride. It really wasn't that bad since the swell was spaced pretty nicely. After a 20 mile run, our destination was confirmed, first by the arrival signal from my GPS and then again as we watch the outline of a long ago sunken wreck-tuned-fish-heaven on my digital fishfinder screen. We caught Sea Bass steady all day and on every piece of structure we visited. Unfortunately we only had 19 keepers for the day. Well, 20, but I let one of them buggers slip out of my hand. I’m pretty sure it stuck it’s tongue out at me as it hit the water and quickly swam away. Biggest fish of the day was somewhere between 3 and 4 pounds. We caught and released another 30 or so that were too short to keep and I put tags in an even dozen.

As usual, there’s always something that happens on a long fishing trip. A blunder, a hatch dropping on a foot, a hook stuck in someone’s hand or an exploding beer. On this trip, it was a little thing called ‘Sea sickness’. Yes, one of my crew was going the extra mile to help chum up the fish. I won’t “out” the poor guy, but I will say it wasn’t me!!! :-) He got quite a bit of ribbing from at least one other member of the crew. Me, I learned my lesson a long, long time ago. I was fishing out of San Diego with an old friend, oh, close to 30 years ago. We had a couple guys on board and one of them started tossing up breakfast. Boy did I give him a hard time. Well, it was no more than an hour or two later, I found myself hanging over the side. So, since then, with the exception of a few times aboard ship, I don’t rib fellow fishermen.

Well, if you've gotten this far in the post, thanks for reading. Feel free to provide comments, your own outdoors story or any helpful suggestions.. Especially if they have something to do with improving marine forecasting. Just click on the 'comments' tag below.

Memorial Day Fishing Trip

Memorial Day 2008

I had assembled a crew of 4 for this trip to go 20 to 40 miles off-shore looking for some Sea Bass. I figured that would be a better choice than dealing with hundreds of yahoo’s scrambling to get their boats and jet ski’s in the water on a Holiday. Way too many first time boaters and people that only seem to launch on Holiday weekends. My plan was to stay away from the crowds. It worked; I don’t think I saw 30 boats all day.

Any way, the day before, my main fishing buddy called to back out of the trip. He gave some lame excuse but the result was one less on the boat. No problem, the other 3 were still in. So I thought! The next morning, about an hour before we were to depart, one of my other crew members called to cancel. He had a better excuse than the first, as this guy had a recent operation on his shoulder and was in way too much pain to be bouncing around on the boat. So then there we’re 3.

The plan was set and the shortened crew was assembled. We launched after a quick stop at the liquid gold station (gas).

Now everyone that knows me, knows what a huge supporter I am of the weather forecasting profession. :-) I call them Weather Guessers. I won’t get into it but I will point out that the forecast was for a SE wind between 10 and 15kts and 2 to 3 ft seas with a 12 second interval. This forecast was supposed to hold until around 4pm in the afternoon when the winds and seas were to pick up dramatically. I planned to be in long before that was to happen. Not!

We made our way out in a solid 3 foot chop, nothing the new hull can't handle. By the time we were 20 miles off shore, the winds were blowing closer to 20kts and the seas were 3 to 4 ft and sloppy. After wasting time looking for a couple wrecks that I thought I had good numbers for, we ended up moving in to one I knew was good. We drifted over it a number of times picking up small Sea Bass and wondering how much higher the wind and seas were going to get. With nothing but short fish to show for our trip so far - we moved.

That turned out to be the right choice. We started working a reef closer in and the fishing was much better. Still a lot of short Sea Bass but we did manage to put a few keepers in the box. The calamity of the day occurred when Dave (Mr. White Boots) dropped the hatch to my fish box on his foot. While Kerry and I were laughing and Mr. White Boots was cussing his bone headed move, he opened the lid to the fish hold just in time for me to step forward and then down into a pile of ice! This, of course, caused another outburst of laughter and for about 30 seconds took Mr. White Boots mind off his hurt foot.

That pretty much was it. We headed in, loaded the boat and carried her on to the house. After cleaning up the boat and our measly catch, we enjoyed adult beverages with our wives and my other neighbor well into the evening while Dave’s wife provided us all with some much needed dinner. Another Memorial Day in the books. Now it’s time for the boats initial service.

So, initial service; When you buy a new boat, unlike a car, you have to put it through a break-in period. Usually the first 10 hours of operation, never running more than 5 minutes at any one speed. After that, you can run the engine however you like. Somewhere between 20 and 40 hours, you need to bring it in for an initial service. The dealer changes all the fluids along with the fuel and oil filters, checks to make sure everything is operating properly and repairs any flaws that the new boat owner might have found.

So why am I boring you with this detail you ask? Because I have just hit the 30 hour mark on my new boats engine. This means I have to take it in for service. I cringe because taking a boat in for service is nothing like taking a car in. You take your car or truck in and you will likely see it by the end of the day - next day at the latest. When you take a boat in for service, you might not see it for a week. Maybe even two! I’m thinking I’ll be landlocked for about a week. I bought my boat from a very good dealership so I’m pretty sure they’ll get me in and out as quickly as they can. Only problem is, they are two and a half hours away and I don’t like being without a boat!

Wish me luck!

Whippersnappers Vs The Old Farts

Sunday's Adventure

This was one of those rare times when I end up fishing on a boat that isn't mine. My X Suzuki dealer has been putting on a fishing get-together that he likes to call "The Old Fart Fishing Trip". He gets a hand-full of older folks together to go out on his 27 foot Stamas center console for a few hours of fishing. No pressure to catch fish mind you, just to have fun and tell lies. While I'm not yet of the official age to be an "Old Fart", they let me tag along at times. Well, this time would be a little different. A mutual friend of ours decided to kick it up a notch. His idea; to get a crew of slightly younger folks together and challenge the "Old Farts" to a fishing duel.

The Challenge was made. It would be Team Whippersnappers against "The Old Farts". Lucky for me, the Capt. of the Whippersnappers set the age requirement to 55 and under for Whippersnappers and over 55 for the "Old Farts". The only real rule for this tournament was a requirement to have fun, and fun we had! Saturday afternoon our Captain quietly made his way to the "Old Fart's" boat and decorated it up a little for them.

Take a look at what the "Old Farts" arrived to Sunday morning.


The Whippersnappers, after talking a great deal of smack on the local internet fishing board, met up with our Captain Sunday morning. We loaded the boat; a real nice riding, fast running 31 foot Contender and set sail for the Eastern Shore about 20 miles across the Chesapeake Bay. Plan 'A' was to set up for some Red Drum action. Well, we had limited time and we wanted to catch a number of different species of fish; Croaker, Oyster Toads, Sharks, Sea Bass, Blue Fish, Striper, Grey Trout and Flounder, so we didn't want to waste too much time on the Reds. After about an hour we gave up and started looking for the other fish on our list.





In short order one of our Whippersnappers caught a 12 inch Oyster Toad.










Fishing was pretty slow, the water was dirty and the winds were starting to kick up. We managed to catch a 28" Striper but after that, luck had run out. Maybe it was a lack of luck or maybe it was all our Smack Talk. Either way, the fish were tight lipped for us. We fished our way back along the CBBT (Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel) to the Western side once again with nothing to show for our efforts. Along they way, we met up with the "Old Farts". One of which, felt it necessary to shoot us the moon! A site that will haunt us Whippersnapper's for some time to come.


Long story, less long. We logged a lot of miles on the boat, burned close to 60 gallons of fuel and had just 2 fish to show for it. At 3pm, the tournament was officially over and we met up back at the dock to see who would be the winners of the first annual Whippersnapper's vs "The Old Fart's" fishing tournament.


Well, it would seem that - for Sunday any way, the old fart's prevailed. Not only did they catch 2 keeper sized Striper, they also caught and released a few small Sea Bass, one or two Oyster Toads, some Croaker and a Flounder. So yes! They pretty much spanked our A$$'s. Can't really say as any of us lost though. We each pitched in a 10 dollar entry fee and all the money was donated to the Wish-a-Fish foundation. We also had a great time after the tournament at the Surf Rider restaurant eating some great sea food and enjoying a few adult beverages. Here is one final picture of Team Whippersnapper on board Fishin Fool