Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Left after work on Friday night and got to Kiptopeke around 10. Set up camp, and headed for the pier only to discover that ALL of the flood lights were out :angry:

We fished for a couple hours and caught a bunch of ribbonfish on bladebaits, rat L traps, and tandem fin-s. The ribbons were jumping everywhere but there didn't seem to be anything else around. Kept 3 and released a bunch more.



The next morning I launched my kayak and headed for the ships. I jigged a small spoon tipped with Gulp and Fishbites and caught a variety of fish. Spot, croaker, pigfish, sea bass, flounder, oyster toads, bluefish, sea robins, and a triggerfish. I also spent a good amount of time jigging gulp, plastics, and strip baits for flounder but all I caught were a couple of tiny ones. Dragged a live snapper blue around for a while and got nothing on that either.



Tried the pier again that night and the lights were still off. Caught some ribbons, then went down onto the beach to wade and see what I could scoop up in a net. Crabs, hogchoker, ballyhoo, bay anchovies, silversides, and sea robins were all caught and released.

Sunday morning I fished from the pier for a few hours. No flounder, but lots of sea robins, sea bass, tiny puffers, pinfish and spot. I talked with a few locals and they said it had been a really bad year. I'm guessing the broken pier lights were a big part of that.

After I caught some bait, I launched the yak again. I drifted live and cut spot all around the ships and caught a few very small flounder, all under 12". After that I did some more jigging and caught more little fish hanging around the ships. I never want to see another baby sea bass again! Those things were everywhere. I was relieved every time I pulled up something else.



Late Sunday afternoon we went to the Cape Charles pier. Here the catch was ribbonfish, sea robins, one small trout and a small founder. Everything was on tandem fin-s and bladebaits. We also did a little crabbing and caught a few, mostly sooks. It was a beautiful evening out there. Left around 9 I think.



Monday morning it was time to get on the road, but on the way home I was able to stop at a secluded spot on the Back River. Casted a spinnerbait for puppy drum for about 90 minutes, lost one, and missed a couple more. I think if I could spend a few hours in a kayak in this spot I could catch some nice drum. Tons of crabs around there too.

That was it for the weekend. Lots of fish caught, but not a whole lot of size. Wish I had a few more days down there!