By Richard Welton

I don’t usually fish tournaments because they aren’t my thing but when a good friend that I owed a favor to asked me to take her team out for one day of the 3 day Mid Atlantic Rockfish shootout, I couldn’t refuse.

Fishing for big stripers had been slow since the bay closure Dec 31 shut down the Cape Charles eel fishery. To make matters worse, the warm weather had the water temps up at 51 degrees making it unnecessary for the big fish to feed much. The unseasonably warm East Coast weather also kept most big fish up north of VA. So things were not looking good for the tournament.

Richard Hylton, of Rixeyville, VA (above center of picture) was the captain of both the 1st place team and the 2nd place team in 2007.
Photo by Mary Ann Nixon

Tuesday night before the tournament saw a 30 degree temp drop accompanied by a howling Northwest wind. This combination dropped the ocean water temperature to around 49 degrees and set the big fish feeding as hordes more big fish finally came down from New Jersey and Delaware. Then the wind fell out for calm water just in time for the tournament. Cooler water causing the fish to feed, lots more big fish, calm weather; as my father used to say, “the pots right!”

The tournament cost $495 to enter and you could fish any one of 3 days. You could prepay $495 for each additional day you wanted to fish and some boats fished all 3 days.

Our boat chose to fish Friday, the second day. We went up off the Eastern Shore to where big fish were caught the day before. Lines were allowed in at 8 AM and had to be out by 2 PM. Boats also had to stay inside the 3 mile line. If you did not fish the tournament, it is easy to speculate that if the USCG and VMRC law enforcement could not keep everyone inside the 3 mile line, how could the tournament officials. The effect of a lie detector and big money is a wonderful thing to behold. The fishing was slow for the 32 boats around us off of Quinby inlet yet when a mother lode of gannets started “behiving” 3 and a half miles out, not one boat crossed the line. It was like everyone had experienced a religious experience. Big money and the threat of a lie detector gave everyone in the tournament religion and the few boats not in the tournament were not about to venture out alone.

Our boat caught 2 fish (15 & 25 pounders) on eels early then not another fish for 3 hours. Around 12:30 we started catching 30 to 35 pounders almost as fast as we could get the eels out. I have never released so many 30 pound stripers much less caught that many. I happened to go forward to the map plotter between fish and found that we had drifted dangerously close to the 3 mile line. I informed everyone to reel up, as we had to move. The response was that we were in the fish good so a couple more minutes would not make any difference. My answer was that if we drifted another 50 yards east, I could not pass a lie detector test so “reel ‘em up” as I started the engines. Seems I had found religion too. We simply moved a quarter mile back upwind of where we drifted before and started catching again.

Our largest 3 fish combined weight would not have quite reached 100 lbs. Since the top boats from the day before were all well over that, we were out of the running at 2 PM and decided not to weigh our fish. Still it was the best day of big striped bass fishing in my life. Dozens of fish over 25 lbs for us.

In my opinion, it was the best 3 days of big striper fishing VA has ever seen. There were boats of expert tournament fishermen from all up and down the East Coast. They caught dozens of fish over 50 pounds, maybe more than 100 over 40 pounds and hundreds of 30 pounders. Thirty-three boats weighed in 3 fish stringers over 100 pounds. The top 3 boats weighed in 3 fish stringers over 141 pounds. That folks is a lot of nice fish and like us, most boats released far more than they brought in.

There was over $202,000 in prize and calcutta money paid out! The 8th place boat got $19,935 for a 120.83 pound 3 fish stringer because he was entered in all 3 calcuttas.

Yes, it was 3 great days of the East Coast’s top fishermen catching lots of really big fish. Just as important was the way the tournament was run. It was well publicized, well sponsored and the registration and weigh-ins went smoothly. The awards party had wonderful food that didn’t run out. Mike Standing and his staff deserve a great deal of recognition for running the best striper tournament Virginia Beach has ever seen and probably the best on the East Coast. I don’t know of any other striper tournament that caught half as many fish that large.

The marinas, hotels, and restaurants were all booming. One tackle shop that usually closes at 6 PM sold 600 eels at $2 each between 6PM and 7 PM one evening of the tournament. I have never seen so many big go fast fishing boats on trailers before.

Mike put on the best tournament ever and put Virginia Beach on the map as the best striper fishing destination anywhere. This is the most publicity Virginia Beach has had since “Greekfest”, maybe the city and innkeepers will do more to help next year. The City council should at least give Mike a key to the city. Thank you Mike!

If you think you are a good striper fisherman and missed it this year, come on down next year and find out for sure just how good you are as the best fishermen on the East Coast meet for the best big striper fishing in the world. And I don’t even like fishing tournaments.