Tautog

Fishing was especially good last week in Virginia.According to Jack Redinger of Seahawk Sports Center in Pocomoke, "The hot spot for flounder was Wachapreaque. Saturday [May 4] was an especially good day. Every boat we talked with had at least seven or eight flounder. Quite a few had their creel limit of 10. Quinby, Chincoteague and Folly's Creek also saw good flounder catches."He said that the flounder were taking frozen shiners and live bull minnows.Sea trout, as well as speckled trout, are also showing up in the bays around Virginia.

Lenny Rudow's book, Fishing the Mid Atlantic, will never be mistaken for the lyrical writings of Hemingway or McGuane or Gierach, but that's not why you crack open this softcover volume. Rudow is the guy you turn to if you want to outwit fish and improve your odds on the water. From North Carolina to New York, from wreck fishing to inshore chumming, from tautog to tuna, this longtime Maryland angler tells you what he knows about more than 300 fishing hot spots. The senior technical editor and fishing editor for Boating Magazine for a decade cuts to the chase on each species and location-even including GPS coordinates for many of them.

Offshore fishing action has begun in earnest, with the waters off Ocean City alive with mako sharks.Several were caught this past week, most over 100 pounds. The largest mako shark was taken by angler Curtis Carnell aboard the Jazzey Sazzey with Capt. Lee Fickinger. The mako, which weighed 263 pounds, was hooked northeast of the Jackspot.The party also released another mako shark as well as a dusky shark. Most of the sharks have been taken in this location or in the Fingers area. The best bait is mackerel or bluefish.

Piney Run -- Some largemouth bass caught on live minnows and plastics near hydrilla; cut baits and chicken livers are attracting catfish; and striped bass are hooking on chicken livers. Prettyboy Reservoir -- "Now is the time to catch a trophy largemouth or smallmouth bass," Joe Butta said, citing larger fish moving into staging areas to feed for the winter. Plastics, jigs and crankbaits work. Trolling spinners and night crawlers work for white perch. Gunpowder River -- Cool, clean water is flowing faster than 180 cubic feet per second, according to the Backwater Angler online report, combining with fewer anglers to increase chances of catching fish.

Surf anglers are allowed to fish before 10 a.m. and after 5 p.m. Avid anglers fish the early morning hours, knowing this is one of the best times to cast in a line.The kingfish (or whiting) have been biting. These fish give a good fight for their size and are wonderful to eat. The bait is usually a piece of bloodworm or a combination bait of bloodworm and a small strip of mullet on a size No. 6 hook.The kingfish, which have small sucker-like mouths, a barbel beneath their chins and are gray to black with vertical lines across their upper bodies, do not get much over a pound.

The Department of Natural Resources is considering a number of changes in non-tidal fishing regulations for next year, including the addition of the North Branch of the Potomac River to the list of put-and-take trout areas.Other proposed additions to the put-and-take list are the Youghiogheny River in Garrett County from I-68 downstream to the Youghiogheny Reservoir, Linganore Creek in Frederick County from Linganore Road upstream to the dam water intake and Shad Landing pond in Worcester County.

**** EXCELLENT*** GOOD** FAIR* POORSalt waterInshore *** Flounder fishing has been good on the rising tide, with minnow and squid combinations working well from the inlet at Ocean City to the Route 50 bridge. Tautog on sand fleas from north jetty and the bulkheads at 1st and 4th streets.Offshore *** 1/2 Wreck fishing has been excellent for sea bass, sea trout and tautog, with with an occasional bluefish.CHESAPEAKE BAYLower bay *** 1/2 Early morning or just before dark are good times for rockfish at the Southwest Middle Grounds, in the lower Potomac, Tangier Sound, Point Lookout and Hooper Straits.

Offshore tuna fishing has been excellent. Last weekend, anglers found a huge school of bigeye tuna beneath floating debris northwest of the Washington Canyon. The fish were in 40 fathoms of water, and some weighed more than 100 pounds.Many boats caught two to four fish before leaving. Although there is no limit to the number of bigeye tuna an angler can keep, a 100-pound bigeye is still considered a baby fish, so conservation-minded anglers were using good sense.Anglers at the Jackspot are still doing excellent chunking for bluefin tuna with pieces of butterfish.