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Bay Bridge Tunnel Is a Thoroughfare for Tidal Anglers

Larry Freed, left, and Capt. Skip Slomski show off a jumbo rockfish caught near the pilings at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel near Norfolk.
Larry Freed, left, and Capt. Skip Slomski show off a jumbo rockfish caught near the pilings at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel near Norfolk. (By Angus Phillips For The Washington Post)
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You'd think 14 miles of bridge would give everyone plenty of room but as the day wore on things got crowded. TFers are a gregarious and communicative bunch. They love to call each other on the cell phone when they hit a good spot, so everybody eventually winds up in the same place. It reminded me of largemouth bass fishing 20 years ago, when the hotspots were jammed weekend after weekend by many of the same people.

But as long as the tide kept running the bridge kept producing. In eight hours, we jigged up 25 rockfish or so, including Slomski's 37-incher and another 36-incher. Virginia rules allow anglers to keep two rockfish a day apiece, but keepers must be either 18 to 28 inches or over 34 inches, with those in the 28- to 34-inch "slot" protected. Reasoning that fish under 28 inches were better eating than those over 34, we kept only the smaller ones.

Slomski reckons the best fishing at CBBT is yet to come. With water temperatures in the mid-50s last weekend, the big push of rock into the bay probably hasn't occurred yet, he said. Virginia rockfish season runs till Dec. 31, and guides and outfitters will operate there till the season's bitter end.

This outing marked my first serious encounter with the TF crowd since last spring, when a column I wrote criticizing early-season fishing tournaments for large spawning rockfish drew outrage from its members. My feeling then (and now) was that offering big cash prizes for dead spawning fish was a sick concept and ought to be banned. The TFers, who love a good tournament, reamed me out on their Web site and several referred to me as an AH.

I still haven't figured out what AH stands for. Angling hack, maybe?

* * *

A number of Washington-Baltimore area fishing guides work the bridge tunnel this time of year.

Among them:

Capt. Skip Slomski, 410-746-6907; Capt. Pete Dahlberg, 703 -395-9955; Capt. C.D. Dollar, 410-991-8468; Capt. Mike Critzer, 301-253-5605; Capt. Mark Galasso, 410-827-5635; Capt. Richie Gaines, 410-827-7210.


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