What a difference a year makes.
Last year at this time, according to fishing-obsessed Joe Zimmer of Berlin,Md., stripers off Oregon Inlet in North Carolina were thick as ants at an all-day Fourth of July picnic.
As of earlier this week, they had not moved south, making the fishing go south, as it were. Balmy weather is the bane of winter striper fishing.
Zimmer recounted trips of recent years when a boat would take more than 100 fish per day, leaving jigging anglers with aching arms and memories of breaking stripers, bait trying to fly to escape fish, birds diving on bait, whales cruising the fishing grounds for an easy lunch. These were stripers in the 15- to 30-pound range, occasionally bigger ? no slouches or samples.
This year, such fishing was part of the plan, fishing with host Zimmer on the 52-foot Smoker with Capt. Brenner Parks and mate Chris Gornell.
But Plan A did not work. That was to run north to the Virginia border to find southern-bound travelers. We couldn?t. Plan B on Day 2 was to go offshore for yellowfin tuna.
“I don?t know where they come from, but yellowfin tuna are here all year around,” Zimmer said.
Except this time, they weren?t. Trolling ballyhoo with a skirt, my wife Brenda caught one early, but that was it for the day. Scratch Plan B. Plan C on Day 3 was to run south to Hatteras for stripers. That didn?t work either.
Zimmer, who divides his time between salmon fishing on Quebec?s Gaspe Peninsula, Ocean City striper fishing, Mexico and Venezuelan big-game fly-fishing and trolling, takes two weeks off from running his contracting business for after-Christmas striper fishing at Manteo, N.C., fishing out of Oregon Inlet.
This time, the fish had not yet caught up with the fishermen. The weather has been balmy, keeping the water too warm locally to push the stripers south. Some local water temperatures have been around 50 degrees when last year they were in the low 40s. There?s no reason for “our” fish to move.
Abouttwo weeks ago, there were schools of big stripers around the Crisfield area. Anglers have been getting big stripers around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, where, on some days, a few hundred boats have clustered for the fun. It?s catch-and-release now in Virginia?s Bay; two fish over 28 inches in the ocean.
Recent reports have touted stripers off Ocean City, around the Bass Grounds, Winter Quarter Shoals, Fenwick Shoals, Isle of Wight Shoals, and Chincoteague. Most fish are in the 10- to 25-pound range, about two to 10 miles out.
For the great North Carolina striper fishing and aching arms, it looks like another week or three before the weather chills the waters to move the fish south ? and you know the rest of the story.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors, and is currently working on his 25th book. He can be reached at [email protected].
