Way South Fishing Reports

Way South Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, January 2 Update:

Happy New Year folks! Let’s make the 2025 fishing season another great one. The wind has really been blowing this week which has kept most boats off the water. The cold isn’t helping either and it looks like the forecast may be calling for more cold weather headed our way. There has been some migratory striped bass action on the main Bay and the best reports are coming from the Eastern Shore near Cape Charles. Sho-Nuf Sportfishing was out a few times over the past few weeks and reported that the bite wasn’t on fire, but they had steady catching at times with some very nice trophy fish caught that were tagged and released. They also spent some time chasing down bluefin tuna in the ocean and brought a fish over 90” to the boat before releasing. Other boats heading into the ocean from the Virginia Beach area to chase tuna have been hooking into some monsters. The biggest we saw reported this week was Sea Mee Sportfishing with a 94” fish that weighed 502 pounds.

The tributaries around Norfolk and Virginia Beach are still producing a mixture of speckled trout, red drum, and striped bass. The fish are mostly hanging in deeper water but will move into shallower water during warming trends in the winter. We had a report from an angler who fished the Elizabeth River earlier in the week who said he caught a limit of specks in just a few hours. All fish were caught using MirrOLure Mirrodine slow sinking twitchbaits. Another angler bank fishing in Ocean View caught two keeper trout using twitchbaits as well. The warmup at the beginning of the week seemed to push some puppy drum into shallow water of less than five feet and there was a decent bite in the inlets. The striped bass still seem to be biting best at night in the vicinity of dock and building lights. Night fishing for striped bass can be very effective in the winter. Though nighttime temperatures are cold, the bite can be very good as fish will be looking to ambush baitfish attracted to the illuminated water.