February fishing had a lot to be desired, but I tried to make the best of it. The last few trips out of NC were one fish trips for over 8 hours of trying. On my last trip, I burned over 80 gallons of fuel and covered somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 miles, so at his point something had to change. I made a few phone calls to some buddies fishing out of Virginia Beach and was told it was happening up there, so I called my last few Striper charters and told them the situation. It was decided that we would fish Va. Beach. The first two days, I had Rock and his buddies from Pennsylvania. The first day started out slow, but got pretty hot for about an hour, but it was all catch and release since we were out past the 3 mile line. They did have one nice Striper that they caught inside and had a local restaurant cook it for dinner. The next day was very slow with one fish, ALL day. A beautiful day to fish, but they had lock jaw for us. The following day, I was out with Randy Taatjes and his wife. I was hoping for better luck, but as we were going thru the inlet, the swell had picked up from the night before, so I didn’t know what would happen. Once I cleared the inlet, I noticed a few boats straight out of the inlet, about a mile out. After bumping our way out, the marks on the sonar were the best I had seen in a long time. I set out five poles and the fun began. Some singles and a few doubles, but all fat fish. With in no time , they had their limit, so everything else went back in. After a few hours, it started raining, so we called it a day. The largest fish was bouncing my hand scale between 38 and 40lbs., but all the fish were nice fat Stripers. Back to Carolina I went with another year of Striper fishing behind me, and looking forward to next fall’s Striper run.

Thanks, Ray