Virginia Saltwater Fishing Report

This week marine conditions around Virginia will start off a bit rough as a front pushes through, with stiff winds and choppy seas limiting some early-week opportunities. As high pressure settles in mid-week, the water calms down quickly, bringing light winds and much easier running for anglers. The improving conditions should make the back half of the week great for targeting stripers, trout, and tautog as the seas lay down and boats can move around more comfortably.

November brings some of the best striped bass action of the year to Virginia waters. Big migratory fish surge into the lower Chesapeake Bay, holding along channel edges, river mouths, and especially around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where pilings, rips, and rock lines concentrate bait and big fish alike. Anglers do well casting or trolling spoons, bucktails, plastic eels, swimming plugs, surface plugs, or fishing peeler crab, cut bait, and live menhaden around structure.

Speckled trout continue to offer great action this month, especially in shallow marshes, grassy flats, tidal creeks, and lower Bay shorelines—and four standout spots this time of year are Lynnhaven Inlet, Rudee Inlet, Little Creek Inlet and the Elizabeth river. These areas provide ideal late-fall habitat with grassbeds, drop-offs, and warm pockets of moving water. Mirror lure plugs, soft plastics, bucktails, peeler crab, and live mullet or shrimp all work well. As the water cools, trout tend to slide slightly deeper into adjacent holes or along ledges near their usual feeding areas.

Nice catches CBBT islands

Tautog fishing is hitting full stride in November, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel islands are one of the very best places to target them. The rocks, rubble, and pilings around the islands are loaded with tog this time of year, and they readily take blue crabs, fiddler crabs, green crabs, mole crabs, clams, and whelk. Heavy tackle is essential, as tautog bite hard and dive instantly back into structure.

Croaker are nearing the end of their season, but still offer steady action on warmer days, especially in sandy-bottom areas of the Bay and nearshore waters. Bottom rigs tipped with peeler crab, bloodworms, squid, shrimp, or small pieces of cut bait continue to produce for both pier and boat anglers.

Flounder remain available through the end of November as they stage near inlets, estuary mouths, and deeper transitions ahead of their offshore migration. Live minnows, frozen minnows, small live fish, squid strips, bluefish or flounder belly strips, minnow-and-strip combos, and bucktails worked slowly along the bottom are all effective choices.

Large bluefish are still feeding aggressively in the Bay, inlets, surf, and nearshore ocean waters. Metal lures, spoons, tube eels, surface plugs, and fresh-cut bait such as menhaden, mullet, herring, or spot all draw hard strikes from choppers pushing bait against rips and bars.

Gray trout remain available through the end of the month both in the Bay and offshore zones near the Eastern Shore. Drifting or jigging over oyster beds, reefs, and channel edges with bucktails, metal jigs, soft plastics, squid strips, live spot, peeler crab, or cut bait continues to produce.

Offshore, November is an excellent month for black sea bass, triggerfish and bluefish on reefs and wrecks. Black seabass stack tightly over deep structure in 80 to 150 feet of water, hitting squid strips, clam, cut fish, and small jigs or bucktails tipped with bait. The cooling water often makes the bite even more consistent as the month goes on. Tilefish are also available deep dropping.

Looking ahead, offshore anglers are gearing up for bluefin tuna season off Virginia. The recreational Atlantic bluefin season opens January 1 under federal HMS rules, giving anglers access to the winter run of school- and large-school-class fish. Commercial fishermen can resume targeting bluefin when the General Category reopens on December 1. Both seasons are federally managed by NOAA with quotas, size limits, and reporting requirements updated as the season progresses, but each year the opener marks the start of one of the most exciting offshore opportunities on the Virginia coast.