Strange year for us. However we fished for rockfish from NJ to VA and did so Livelining, eeling, chunking, jigging, trolling, and any other way we thought we could catch these fish and have fun doing it.
Jigging in the winter was fun. Landed a lot of fish over 30" and a couple over 40"
Spring trolling was slow. We didnt have a great spring but we always found fish.
Late spring chunkingafter the trophy season wasnt all that hot either. However we caught a couple of big cats and never got skunked.
Summer -- this was year of the big striper. I think we averaged over 28" on summer fish caught. We did well both jigging and live lining. Hardest part about live lining was finding spot. The ones we found were HUGE and they resulted in big stripers. We even got some press with a good day at Wish-a-Fish:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/o...,6794988.story Because spot were hard to come by I spent more time learning to jig the bridge and now think I can hang with most in the area.
Fall was slow again. I didnt get to fish as much but when we did we caught mostly smaller rockfish jigging. A fish over 24" was rare. Most of this fishing was north of the bridge. Once trolling for migrants started we havent had a great bang up day like years in the past. We have caught a number of bigger fish but it usually has been only a few fish per trip. We also caught a few fish eeling. I think the water from the storms has made it for a tougher fall in the upper bay.
I am hoping for a few more trips before the new year. I want to get out once before the season closes in MD on Thursday and definately will make a run to PLO the week between Christmas and New Years. A C&R trip off of Bloody Point between now and Christmas may be fun too.