PLO Report Saturday

[SeaSalt]

Fished Friday night 10pm to Saturday 11am. High tide was at 8am. We caught three croakers but the bites were slow coming.

We did manage to say hi to this gigantic racoon who live under the rocks at the causeways. It was scary seeing this pale white-ish furry thing popping up his head in the dark... We put out a fish on top of the rock to see if he will be tempted to get it and after about 10 minutes, sneaky creature came up and grabed it.

We had an interesting thing happen the whole night. We kept on loosing our bait even though we didn't get any bites. Everytime we brought in our line, the bait was gone. We were using circle hooks 2/0. Anyone know what would cause this?

[shaggy]

Probly crabs or small stuff. Just my opinion.

Have Jeep will travel. :D

[jay b]

My guess would be crabs. I put up with the same thing here while bait fishing for Flounder but it's easier to tell because I roll/drift my bait in the curret and never put the rod down. You can feel the gentle tug of the crab real easy that way, however if you're deadsticking bait they'll rob you blind in a heartbeat!! Try holding your rod a while and you should be able to feel them pull. Every now and then you can set the hook and hook one to bring in as proof if you want.

[Hat80]

Their at PLO thick. Fished the pier Thursday morn to Fri morn last week. We had the same problem, bait gone with no movement at all. At night under the lights the crabs are all over the place. In fact they were getting caught on peoples hooks and reeled in.

We did leave the pier with a good haul of Croaker and jumbo Spot. As always a goodtime with good friends. ;)......Tightlines

[Wrong Way]

We were at the PLO causeway from 2pm-midnight on Sat. Ended up with 6 keeper crabs and 4 fish (3 spot and 1 croaker). The bite was slow and didn't start until 6ish. Only saw 1 other fish caught and it was on the sand between the pier and causeway. We did happen to hook up with a clown-nose ray and got it within 5ft of the rocks when it came off.

One weird sighting was of a pair of black dorsal fins in the water crusing about 150ft out. We had no clue what it was but it was definately not a clown-nose. Anyone know what it might have been?

[SeaSalt]

Wrong Way,

We saw that too. Fishbone thought it was a shark... it came really close to the rocks once...

[Wrong Way]

Did you guys manage to determine what it was or the size? It was really interesting cause it was crusing along then basically stopped for a few seconds and started going again. The only thing I could make out was a pair of dorsal fins side by side and a dark shadow.

[Hat80]

what you saw was in fact a Cownose ray. They cruise the waters around PLO all the time with their wing tips up out of the water. It looks just like two sharks swimming side by side.

At eye level form the causway that is what it would look like. On the pier 10' off the water or from a boat you can clearly see that they are rays. ;)...Tightlines

[Wrong Way]

That's interesting to know Hat. I swore the tips were black on both sides but what you're saying does make a lot of sense.

[FL FISHERMAN]

A couple cownose rays. They tend to school up and stack on top of each other. They swim around looking for anything they can get their mouths on. When they do this they are usually at the top of the water and their wings usually will come out of the water. Only reason I say this is because I have seen it at PAX before and didn't believe they were cownose until I got real close to them. And trust me they were not small ones. 75+lbs each and 3 to 4 ft wide

[FL FISHERMAN]

:eek: Yeah what Hat said! :D (stupid slow computer) :p

[BLUEFISH]

I witness small cobia being caught there last year..... what's the chance that it was adult cobia?
I guess I am dreaming? or could it be ..........Hmmmmmmmm.........

[FlounderFinder]

I was on the causeway as well when the "fin" came by. It was crazy because it was right after I had the only action I had the whole 6 hours before and after I was there. I had a huge hit on my surf rod and finessed it for a bit until I realized I had a skate on the other end. I horsed it pretty hard and luckily it got off. My inshore rod hit a dink about 2 minutes later. As I was crawling down the rocks to release the stripper in in full water I saw a black fin about 20 ft. from the breaker! At first I didn't know what it was and was trying to tie a gotcha plug to see if whatever it was would hit and give my light tackle a ride.

Bottom line is that it seems like too much of a coincidence that within 100 yards I would have had a hit from a skate and seen a fin. With that said, I probably had the only shark in PLO history on the end of my line and over horsed it....

On another note, I stopped on my way out to PLO @ Soloman's Pier and it was dead...Good luck to all...

[Andre]

I was on the VA beach pier last weekend and I saw the same thing apair of blk tip wings swimming on the surface. On the south side of the pier I thought rays but the locals said cobia.
I caught one keeper spanish mack and a bunch of small blues on got-cha and pick up some small flounders on got-chas and clark spoons.Others filled there coolers with round heads, spot, croakers,and rays.

[cutbait34]

I actually caught two small Cobia lst summer at PLO on cut spot. They were both about 20 inches long and put up a good fight for being so small. The one thing I remember just before catching the first one is seeing small black fins in the water. I do think that the water was much saltier last summer due to the fact that we got almost no rain. Maybe that had something to do with them migrating so far north. I don't know if that helps any.

Cutbait34

[Wrong Way]

Hmm, I should've taken a picture. It hasn't rained much this season compared to last season so hopefully that will bring more fish we didn't see last year.

[captmikestarrett]

It is known fact that cobia and rays school together. Once you see a shark fin you can tell by the shape of it that it is different than a ray skimming the surface. The back side of the fin of a shark is at a different angle that a rays wing. Also the fin will move left and right as the shark swims. But it sure got me looking the first I saw a ray skimm the surface.

Capt Mike Starrett