Way South Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, November 6 Update:
Speckled trout action is improving as water temperatures fall, with opportunities around the lower Chesapeake tributaries, Rudee Inlet, and oceanfront. Tautog are also becoming more active around bridges and artificial reefs, while a few impressive bull red drum are still making their way out of the Bay.
The speckled trout bite has picked up as the water temperatures are cooling off. The bulk of the fish are still too small to keep, but we have seen some keepers caught from the Elizabeth River, Rudee Inlet, and along the oceanfront in the surf. Fresh shrimp on bottom rigs has worked well for anglers fishing the mouth of Rudee Inlet, but casting paddletails and other soft plastics around grass beds, creek channels, and docks has also worked well in other tributaries. Specks have been in a range of depths, anywhere from three feet of water to as deep as 15 feet of water. We saw a report from an angler who had an excellent day fishing on the southern James River this past week. They started their day fishing structure and caught several tautog around 14” and some seatrout around 15”. Their big tautog was a keeper coming in at 22”. Then they stumbled across a school of red drum and caught several up to 20”, including a tagged 18” fish. On their way back to the ramp, they took some casts to nearshore structure and caught a few striped bass up to 17”. A day like that is what makes the Way South region of the Bay so special, there’s tons of diversity.
The tautog bite has picked up around the various bridges in the Way South region. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel pilings and rock islands are hotspots for tautog this time of year. Anglers have been catching a lot of undersized fish, but there are some keepers in the mix too. These fish can also be caught at artificial reef sites, the Kiptopeke concrete ships, and other hard bottom structures scattered throughout this region. There are still some bull red drum hanging out up the Bay since the fall has been warmer than average so far. Schools of these fish are still migrating out of the Bay, and some anglers have been able to catch them on their way out. We had a reader check in who caught his personal best redfish just outside the shipping channel off Kiptopeke this week. The fish measured 52” and was caught on fresh cut spot dropped down to bottom. Most of these fish will be gone by Thanksgiving, so there are still a few weeks to catch them as they migrate south.
Anglers in the area might want to check out a couple of free new online directories created by a Virginia Beach angler named Nicholas. He’s built one for bait and tackle shops and another for public boat ramps, for Hampton Roads boaters and anglers.