Seigler Trip

On Friday, Terry Seigler and his group fished with my Mate, Nathan and I.  When we left the dock, we had a strong NW wind, but the area that I planned to fish was pretty well protected.  On the way out we had massive and numerous waves, but as we got closer to where we were going it calmed down, and by 10:00 it was nearly calm.
After running for 1.5 hours we got our trolling spread out, and quickly found the fish.  We caught a lot of fish, and had to send a many back because they were undersize, but we did manage to take home a limit of  Striped Bass between 18" and 25".
Thank you guys for coming down to fish with us!  I look forward to doing it again soon.

One To Check Off Of My Bucket List

It has taken me a couple days to wrap my head around everything that has happened over the past few days.  Ever since I was a young man, I have dreamed of winning the Annual Fishing Derby that is held in Reedville every spring.

 

The Reedville Fishing Derby is the the longest running fishing tournament held in Virginia, in fact, 2014 was the 31st time that the tournament was held.  In its heyday, the tournament was limited to 500 boats, and I understand that the sponsor, Smith Point Sea Rescue had a waiting list for boats to enter.  Back then, the Chesapeake Bay was FULL of BIG Bluefish and this tournament was focused strictly on that species.  Unfortunately, in the late 80's the large Bluefish that we had been used to catching, did not migrate up into the bay, and as a result, this tournament added Striped Bass and Croaker prizes to their list.  This was an event that everyone looked forward to all year, and during the weekend that this tournament was held, the small town of Reedville swelled to the point that there were traffic jams on Main Street. Recently, this tournament has taken on different characteristics in that it is now strictly a Striped Bass tournament, and held in May rather than June. In addition, the number of boats that participate has shrunken significantly, this year there were fewer than 50 boats participating. I'm hopeful the Smith Point Sea Rescue can breathe new life into this tournament and bring it back to its former glory.

 

My Father, Capt. Fred Biddlecomb has fished in this tournament every year with the exception of 2013and 2014.  During his long history of fishing this tournament, one thing has remained constant every year for my Dad, and that is that our family friend Jerry Moreland, his family and friends have fished with him. Unfortunately, we lost Jerry several years ago, but his sons and grandsons have kept the tradition of fishing this tournament alive.  This year, Michael and Jerry Moreland  Jr., their sons, Cody and Hunter, and two other friends, David Sisk and Scott Arbogast, fished the tournament with me on my new boat, Three Sons and started a new family tradition.

 

 On Friday morning, we headed out early, ran for about 1.5 hours and found some good looking bait and a few nice looking marks which I was pretty sure were Rockfish.

 

 

 

My Mate Joe Lucas and I got our spread out as fast as we could, with the exception of a couple planer board malfunctions, we had a good looking spread. Within 30 minutes we landed a 42" bass which was good enough for the second place youth award for Hunter. 

 

 

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was spent straining water looking for a follow up fish, but no such luck.

 

 

Saturday morning, I ran to another location based on some fishing reports that I got Friday evening.  On my way there, I ran into some of the best looking marks that I have seen in the past 12 months, and with the exception of one other boat, I had it all to myself.  Again, Joe & I got our spread out, without the planer board issues that we had on Friday.  In short order, we had 3 bites and managed to land one fish.

 

 

  Within an hour, I made another pass through the same area and we hooked up again.  This time, Cody was up for battle.  This was a LARGE fish based on the fight that it put up, however, it came unhooked before we could get the net under it.  I made another pass through the area when all the sudden, one of the rods went down in a BIG way!  David grabbed the rod & the battle was on.  After nearly 20 minutes of give and take, I finally got my hands on the leader and brought the fish up to the surface.  When that fish came into view, I could tell that we had an exceptional fish on our hands.  Joe got the net under the fish, and it took both of us to get her into the boat. 

 

 

Once in the boat we attempted to measure the fish, but it was longer than my measuring tape, so we estimated the length to be around 49".  With that fish in the box we covered some different water and managed to get 2 more bites and land one more fish. 

 

 

Knowing that we had a contender for the tournament, we packed up at 1:30 and headed to Reedville where we were to weigh in.

 

 

 

 

When we got to the dock, we sent the fish up to the weigh station where the officials recorded the official length and weight which turned out to be 50.5" and 49.25 lbs.,a full 4 pounds ahead of the next largest fish. Needless to say, we were all more than happy with the results!
*(view more pictures from this trip and like our facebook page here: www.facebook.com/southertideguideservice )

 

 

As of 6:00 Sat evening, there were no other fish weighed in that were larger than ours, and it was official!  I had finally won the Reedville Fishing Derby with the largest Striped Bass that has ever been weighed during the 31 year history of that tournament!  Needless to say, I have been on cloud 9 ever since. 

 

I really appreciate all of the calls, emails and texts that I have received over the past couple days offering me congratulations.  They mean more than any of you will ever know.

As I mentioned, this whole tradition started with my dad and Jerry Moreland MANY moons ago.  Jerry is gone now, but I know that he was with us that day, and my father Captain Fred Biddlecomb has been nothing but supportive of my new endeavor.  I would like to dedicate this tournament win to them.

As Close as You Can Get!

Unfortunately, I didn't have a fishing trip booked this weekend, so  my son Grant, friend Mike Carroll & I decided to make a trip out to my family farm to get after a spring gobbler.  Last week, Mike had set a blind in the farm and managed to shoot a 24 lb bird.  This morning, we went straight to that same spot since it was seeing a lot of bird traffic.  We got out & setup early, and like an alarm clock the birds started moving around right on time.

 Within an hour we had a bunch of birds in the field, and they were responding like crazy to Mike's calls.  A short time later 5 hens, 3 jakes & 1 big BOSS bird were making their way in front of the blind.

 Since Grant was the youngest in the group, it was up to him to do the shooting while I did the video (sorry for the poor quality) & Mike did the calling.

Needless to say Grant was a little excited, and if you watch the last video, you will hear him  announce the result of his shot.

 I could tell that Grant was upset, but he took it well. I can tell you from experience that he is not the first (or the last) person to miss a big bird.  On the bright side, he has MANY more spring seasons to get his share of big turkeys.
This weekend I am back on the water at last!  We will be fishing on Friday and Saturday in the Reedville Fishing Derby, and I cant wait!
I still have a few weekend dates open this spring.  Call and book your date now before someone beats you to it!

Come on Spring!!!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am over this winter!  Don't get me wrong, my family and I have had a great time playing in the snow this year, but enough is enough already.

  

A sight like this will be a welcome one this summer when it is +90 degrees and + 90% humidity, but right now what I see is a mean trick that Mother Nature keeps playing on us.

After having been stuck on land for the past two months during the coldest and snowiest winter that I can remember, I can honestly say that I am suffering from a severe case of cabin fever.  I can't help but look forward to getting out on the water in the next few weeks for the opening of Rockfish season.  During the past week I have heard of good numbers of large fish making their way up the bay en route to the spawning grounds of the upper Chesapeake, Potomac and Rappahannock.  Once they have spawned out, these fish will make their way back down the bay where we will target them until the Virginia season ends in June.  With this in mind, now Is prime time to book your weekend trips while I still have dates available.  During the next week, we will haul the Three Sons and do all of the maintenance for the upcoming spring season.  If the weather cooperates, we will be back in the water in time to do some prospecting trips and be tuned up for the season opener.

Tangier Gunning Trip.

This Christmas, My Son Grant got his first shotgun. Since then, Grant has been doing a lot of practicing shooting clay targets, and since he has shown that he is pretty good at hitting moving targets it was time to make the step to wildlife. On Monday, Grant & I loaded up the Three Sons and ran across the Chesapeake Bay to Tangier Island to visit with my good friends Jeff Crockett and Donald "Thornie" Thorne to do some duck hunting. I had been talking to Jeff since Christmas to make sure that the time was right for us to come across to make sure we got some good shooting. With a big winter storm bearing down on us, Jeff gave me the go ahead to make the trip on Monday because the weather would be sure to get the birds moving. We had a good ride across with the wind and waves behind us.

We arrived in Tangier Harbor at lunch time on Monday.

After getting tied up at Parks Marina I caught up with Thornie and Jeff. Since we got there early in the day, we were able to get out in the duck blind that afternoon for a couple hours.

We got set up, and within a couple minutes Grant had his first duck.

That afternoon turned out very well. We got shots on many ducks, and Grant wound up getting 4 out of the five birds that we bagged during that short hunt.  Once shooting hours were over, we went back to the boat and hooked up our heaters since Grant & I were going to spend the night aboard. Later that evening, Jeff came down to the Marina, picked Grant & I up and took us to his home where his wife Nancy had prepared a terrific dinner for us. This was an extremely generous gesture, and one that Grant and I are HUGELY grateful for. Thank you Jeff & Nancy for treating us like family. We will never forget it and hope to be able to return the favor some time soon. The next morning, Thornie picked Grant and I up early, and we headed out to the blind again. As the sun started coming up, the birds started moving in. While we let Grant do most of the shooting on Monday, today was every man for himself.  Jeff and Thornie were right, the birds knew that bad weather was moving in and they were trying to get to shelter where they could ride the storm out.  Luckily, we were where they wanted to be waiting for them.  

We quickly dropped a good number of Red Heads and Brant.

This morning was absolutely beautiful, but I could tell that there was a big storm on the way,

and we had fourteen miles of water to cross to make it home. Once the first flight was over, we returned back to the boat and started across the bay to Reedville. We had a good ride back, and only had to deal with 3-4 foot seas, which is much better than the 5-7 foot seas that are forecast for later today.
Thank you Jeff and Thornie for making Grant's first duck hunt great! You have accomplished your goal of getting him hooked for life. He talked about how much fun he had hunting all the way home, and is already talking about coming back and hunting next year.
 We are very lucky to have such a great place as Tangier Island close to us.  Because of the great habitat that they have, the marshes and flats around Tangier Island hold a great number of ducks, geese and shore birds, but because of erosion, there is less and less of this habitat every year.  I can only hope that "the powers that be" can find a solution to this problem, so that all of my boys can continue to experience what Grant and I did over these past two days.

Davis Trip

On last Saturday, my old friend Jesse Davis went fishing with me.  He has been working very hard over the past few weeks finishing up his new house in time to move in by Christmas, but decided to take break and get off of the land for a day.  As usual, we left the dock early and went out into the bay  looking  for striped bass.  Again, we headed south and kept our eyes peeled for any signs of rockfish working on bait. Unfortunately we didn't see any signs of fish working on the vast quantity of bait that we saw, until we made the turn into the Rappahannock River.  As we went further up the river, we started marking more and more rockfish, so we decided to put our spread out.  We caught a few fish pretty quickly, but unfortunately they weren't large enough to take home.  We kept changing our spread throughout the day until we found what the fish were looking for.  Once the tide changed, the rockfish got together and finally decided it was time to eat.  After straining water for sometime, we picked up some legal sized fish.

  Because of the long trip we had ahead of us, we picked up our spread at 2:00 and headed home.  It was a great day on the water, and the last trip that I had booked for the 2013 season.

All in all, this was a good first season of fishing on the Three Sons.  I had many good compliments from customers on my boat, and honestly she has performed very well this season.  I had great opportunities to fish with wonderful people, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  I want to thank everyone that fished with me this year, and I look forward to having you back in the near future.  Unfortunately, the fishing has not been terrific this fall, but I have a good feeling that this spring will be a different story. 

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I hope that all of you enjoy a great holiday with your friends and family!

Joe   

Moreland Trip

When my Father, Captain Fred Biddlecomb first started carrying charter trips for a living, one of the first groups that he booked was put together by a man named Jerry Moreland.  Jerry booked dad for one of the first Reedville Bluefish Derby tournaments in the early 1980's which at that point was quite an event.  Unfortunately they did not win that tournament, but that weekend started a lifelong friendship between Jerry and my Dad.  From that point on, Jerry, his friends and family fished with Dad every year in that tournament and numerous other times during the year until he was unable to because of his health.  Unfortunately, we lost Jerry several years ago, but his three sons Jerry, Michael, and Mark still take trips with Dad and I several times per year.
Today, Michael, his Son Hunter, Brother Jerry and 3 other friends fished with my Mate Michael Sisson and I.  Although it was overcast, the early part of the day was beautiful, we had light southeast winds and the rain held off until later in the day.

 We ran waaaaay down the bay looking for birds working on baitfish and hopefully some striped bass working on that same bait.  Fortunately, there is no shortage of Menhaden fish in Chesapeake Bay despite what some groups may say to the contrary,

however in the locations that we covered today, legal sized Rockfish were scarce.  

We strained water all day, but finished up with less than stellar results.

Thank you Morelands and friends for fishing with me today.  As always, it was good to see you!  I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and I look forward to fishing with you this spring.  

Joe