Va.Beach Striped bass World Championship

Miles Offshore · #1 01-05-2003, 09:58 AM

Results are in and the winner for this year was a 60 lb 4 oz slob caught by David Mc Custen of Suffolk Va. The Winning fish is worth around 5K this year based on entries. The fish was caught on a live eel at the Chesapeake bay bridge tunnel where the bay season ended Dec 31st. The Ocean Season remains open until 31 March.I would estimate that 95% of all fish over 40" are being released with very few big fish being kept. Although there have been a couple other fish in excess of 50 lbs caught recently. The hogs are here with big fish still moving out of the chesapeake bay. craig

John R · #2 01-05-2003, 10:43 AM

Quote:

The fish was caught on a live eel

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Miles Offshore · #3 01-05-2003, 03:20 PM

John, you know I hated sticking that eel sentence in there but I thought you would get a kick out of it.

Briguy · #4 01-06-2003, 11:08 AM

What's the deal about the eel?

Finster · #5 01-06-2003, 11:14 AM

I think John likes live eels........I'm a live herring, mullet, bunker guy myself. My best bass was 42lbs. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

John R · #6 01-06-2003, 11:53 AM

Miles - I bet that got ya & you knew I'd reply [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Briguy, like many fish, many different types of bait are the most productive at different times. With striped bass it can varry like when the herring are running, it's the top bait, or the mullet run - same thing, big schools of menhaden, same thing, and in the sweltering days of late summer, baits like lobster (if they were legal) in the deeper, cooler waters would probably be top. The nice thing about the live "American Eel" is that it's probably the best overall bass bait in the sense that it's the most consitant bait, live, dead, or rigged dead. The eel is also great in the sense that it can be worked as a "live lure" which is the way I usually use it. About 70-80% of my fishing is done with live eels. I think all of my bass over 30 pounds (from shore) have been on live eels (I'll need to think about that now [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] ).

Some people, like the plug purists, think using eels is like cheating even though it is worked much like an artificial. Some bait dunkers think it's too much work. Most just think they are evil, bloodsucking, biting creatures and can't stand the thought of using them. They are actually very durable, easy to keep a live ( I can keep eels alive for a week with spraying a little mist on them before and after work in a bucket on a bed of ice). I have had days where I've caught several 20#ers on a single live eel and released the eel alive too. But basically, a lot of big bass have been taken with the eels from both boat and shore.

A lot of people feel that the bass simply hates the eel and would kill it just to kill it let alone for food. I was out in Sacramento, CA a few years back where they have a decent Striped Bass fishery (Stripers were introduced there in the late 1800s). I was talking to a fellow that grew up in Maine and had fished for bass with eels growing up. After a while of fishing in Cali without them he decided to bring some back west from Maine with him. Now these west coast stripers had never seen the "american eel" as it is only found in the Western/Eastern Atlantic (they spanw in the Sargasso Sea). So he was fishing this tournament and used live eels and the fish murdered those eels. He did it a couple more times and he said the same thing, the bass just hammered the day lights out of them.

They work great for other fish too. I would recommend some of you fishing other species to try drifting or three-waying one while you are fishing your regular methods to see if it's a trick bait where you are too.

Hope I wasn't too long winded here [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

Finster · #7 01-06-2003, 11:59 AM

My God!!! I think I need a nap after that. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

P.S. My new favorate bait now are those Rapala Skeeter walkers and Skeeter pops [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ........man you want to talk about fun! I sware the bass back up 20' then hit'em like Strahan [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] .....use too [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[ January 06, 2003, 08:08 PM: Message edited by: Finster ]

SEAFARI · #8 01-06-2003, 09:04 PM

quote:
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The eel is also great in the sense that it can be worked as a "live lure" which is the way I usually use it.
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John,
This brings back fond memories of the 02' season. My brother Charlie was visiting from the state of Washington and recovering from heart surgery and
hasn't been striper fishing in 20 years. After an ok morning with some 12-15 lb. fish I stopped at a bridge on the way in to make a few last casts
and I ended up with a 38.5 that almost spooled the 6500 CL [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] . It really made his day to see that fish! Speaking of eels, I used to be a commercial eeler in the late 70's and early 80's
before the overseas market crashed because of the mercury content in the European eels. I was running 80-100 pots a day after school. Back then I would cull out and throw back 75-150 lbs a day of shoe strings! God knows what they would be worth these days [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

Chris

Miles Offshore · #9 01-07-2003, 03:29 PM

From September on they are hard to keep in tackle shops. I believe most Va. Eels come from Va's eastern shore. Talking of rapala's , I really like the Super Shad Rap, although its not the normal "big" fish producer, it catches fish for me on the slow days when they wont hit anything else. My favorite blue/white color they discontinued about 5 years ago. go figure. Talk today of lots of BIG fish going nuts over large schools of elwise heading out of the bay, that means if the weather would break they ought to be available in the ocean this week. People are trying to figure out if they are still leaving the chesapeake bay or returning but the consensus is that since most of the fish have sea-lice on them that they are still ocean fish arriving from "up North". I can get longwinded on these posts also. John, one of my tackle shop friends had over 200 eels he was trying to dump off a couple of weeks ago. (cheap)lol-craig

John R · #10 01-07-2003, 03:51 PM

Chris - there has been a lot of changes in management of the "Eel Fishery". Seems the sushi market has had a big impact on them. Now even recs have a posession limit and a lot of restrictions on commercial... Minimum size for both is like 5 inches - which is still a useless size... Now I've seen eels 4 feet long caught before when people were chunking for bass and I caught a 38 incher once - good battle.

They can get big too:

(well - this is the larger cousin to the American Eel [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] )

I hope to run about a dozen traps this year with a friend of mine so I can cull the size I want, 12-15 inches, slight cobrahead... I spent too much on eels last year [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ...

Miles, I wish I coulda kept them until May & June [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ....

[ January 07, 2003, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: John R ]