Yesterdays tuna report wasnt good so with the beautiful weather today we decided to go deep dropping. Tim, Brian, Emma, and me went fun fishing for groceries and the tilefish wouldnt bite, but I was able to do some exploring and caught more groupers today than I have caught in a long while. Easy 4 man limit of groupers up to 40 pounds, released a bunch more, about 15 or 18 chopper blues, a couple dozen rosefish, and too many dogfish made for a great day. Better than being trapped in the house all day! Plus fresh grouper nuggets for days!
{youtube}zNfXxt-BLeI{/youtube}
Wasn't on fire but we caught a couple. Any time you can send em home with a gallon bag of fillets and a 5 gallon bucket full of crabs is a good day.
This weekend we had gorgeous weather forecast and the satellite shot looked promising, so we took Underdog out for a 24 hour offshore overnight make up charter fishing trip. We left the Virginia Beach fishing center around lunchtime on Saturday headed for the Norfolk Canyon. We got there and based on slow fishing reports, we made a couple drops for swordfish, but no luck. As it became evening, we switched to trolling for tuna and caught a nice 78# yellowfin tuna on a spreader bar on the south wall of the canyon. It got dark shortly aster so we started drifting. Sharks were thick and we caught several hammerhead sharks up to 10 feet long and killed a nice 7 foot, 98 pound spinner shark for the grill. Spinner sharks are very good to eat. As the sun came up, we shifted gears and went back to tuna fishing. We immediately had a strong bite, but it pulled off. Then around 7am on the north side of the Norfolk, we hooked a double of yellowfin tuna and caught a 73.5# and an 80# yellowfin tuna. We found a nearby float that was holding some mahi, so we stopped and bailed 35 nice sized bailers in short time. Put the trolling gear back out and 20 minutes later had a real nice bite on the 50 wide in the long rigger and after 1 hour and 20 minutes, we caught a nice 161 pound bigeye tuna. We were getting low on ice and running out of time, so we decided to quit trolling. We stopped around the Norfolk and did some bottom fishing and caught 50 nice keeper sea bass, a limit of tilefish with 2 nice citations at 10 pounds, and a couple bluefish, and a red hake. Our 24 hour trip yielded 4 citation tunas, 2 citation tilefish, 2 shark release citations, and a couple hundred pounds of meat for the freezer. Very successful trip with great fishing and great weather.
Inshore, the red drum fisihng still remains very good. Sea bass season is now open, so we can keep sea bass. Triggerfish and sheepshead are still around. Tautog showing up some. There have been some bluefish around the islands at the chesapeake bay bridge tunnel. Still catching plenty of spot and croaker in the lower bay and inlets. There have been some false albacore and king mackerel off the Virginia Beach oceanfront. The striped bass fishing has been very slow, but we are experiencing an indian summer in Virginia Beach and the water is still too warm for striped bass to be around. The big news inshore really is and has been the excellent speckled trout fishing going on around the inlets. It has been a great fall for trout so far and it just keeps getting better. All in all, even though it has been a fairly slow summer for the pelagics offshore, the inshore fishing has been great in the fall and we are happy to see the great fishing and the warm temperatures here in Virginia Beach.
We have plenty of days available for fishing charters right now, and have everything from half day inshore trips, to deep dropping trips, to swordfish trips, to overnight tuna and shark trips available. If you want to go on a charter fishing trip with us, please call at 757749-6008. Thank you
Little inshore fishing trip today. Mission grocery getter: complete.
Great time fishing the Huk Big Fish Classic! Weighed a 355# blue marlin, released a blue marlin, 3 white marlin, and a spearfish, for a grand slam and took 3rd place overall!
We lure fished the whole time and the raise: hookup: release ratio is significantly lower with lures, but had some really cool bites. The first day we were chugging along with lures out and I look onto my right side Squidnation teaser and theres a rat blue marlin. Throw a pitch bait and as the pitch bait hits the water, I see a second blue marlin on my left teaser. Theres a pair of blue marlins on my teasers and they wont bite a ballyhoo pitch bait on a circle hook, so I lift the teasers out of the water and both blue marlins hookup on the plugs beside the teasers. I put her in a circle and start clearing my stuff and my long rigger hooks up. 3 blue Marlins hooked up. Crank in the other longrigger and a blue marlin is chasing that that bait but fades in and out and no hookup. I didn't have time to mess with him though because I have 3 blue marlins hooked up going separate directions. 4 blue marlins seen at once hook 3 on plugs. The one I hooked up top came off when I tried to pass the rod down. The two downstairs crossed each other and one pulled off and we caught one. They were rats and it was really hard to keep them buckled up on the plugs but we caught one and it was really cool having 4 blue marlins at once up behind the boat.
We pulled a nice blue marlin off early on, caught some whites, caught a shortbill spearfish about 10 minutes before we hooked the blue marlin we weighed in, and caught the first grand slam for Underdog Sport Fishing Charters, also first blue marlin decked on the underdog for us.
Altogether it was super fun fishing, the weather was bad most of the time, but nonetheless, great crew. Jorge L. Rivera did a great job in the chair. Congrats on your blue marlin boss and thank you to Jorge and the tournament directors and staff at big fish classic for putting on the event.
Good luck to everyone fishing white marlin open next week!
Follow My Captain Jake Hiles Youtube channel, "Fishing with the Matador". I'm a professional fisherman from Virginia Beach, VA, USA, I own and operate Matador Charters and I travel all over the world fishing. I always have a line in the water working to create new video content. I have a very long resume with tournaments and records and this channel chronicles those accomplishments. I love God, my family, America, and FISHING!
Click SUBSCRIBE now for outdoors videos, fishing videos, how-to instructional fishing videos, and fishing related product reviews. My channel also has catch, clean, cook videos of freshwater and saltwater fishing for everything from largemouth and striped bass, giant tuna, marlin, sharks, and demonstrational fishing videos with tournament proven techniques to catch trophy fish.