Fishing season on the Eastern Shore usually starts in March or April. I started mine this year not with tautog, but rather with a palm sized sunfish in a shallow impoundment on my parents property. That's not what I am here to talk about. Rather, what I caught a few days later, a fish that I have never targeted, and never caught. Tautog, also known as blackfish or tautoga onitas. It is in the wrasse family and lives around structure, and has big ugly teeth to crush crustaceans and mollusks that live among the rocks. Not having any structure near our home, we have to travel south to the end of the peninsula to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, an 18 mile long artificial reef.
I went with my friends Scott and Richard Lee (Dick) Hubbard. I had been asking Scott constantly about going for the past few cold, windy, and generally highly disagreeable months. Scott and I played soccer and wrestled back when we were Northampton Yellow Jackets. Since the weather had finally broken, we took the opportunity to get out on the water. I helped my buddy Brian move some things into his new house and quickly departed south to meet Scott, Brian decided that he had to take care of his new house and family rather than fish. My how things have changed. We had hard crabs for bait and off we went. As is often the case, a moderately comfortable day on land in April is a day to be well bundled up on the water, and we were. All things considered, it was pretty nice for April. We spent about an hour dropping baits along the pilings of the bridge tunnel, no bites at all. Your rig is simple, just a single heavy hook, 6-8 oz of lead and that's it. You want to feel some structure on the bottom where the fish will use to hide, and find food. We continued south to some more pilings, Scott and Dick liked this spot, and within about 43 seconds of getting his rig to the bottom Dick had a nice fish on and quickly in the boat. We secured the boat, and Dick repeated himself with about a 6 or 7 pound fish. I quickly got myself overboard and bounced my lead of the bottom. Dick continued to haul 2-6 pound fish into the boat and Scott joined him, I continued to watch.
Catching tautog may not be as easy at it seemed, it takes a certain finesse, touch, and especially braided line, which I did not have. Well I still think I had the finesse and touch, but I did not have the correct line. After the Hubbards had limited out, they gave me one of their rods and i quickly caught a few fish. The braid has no stretch, and you can feel the bottom and the fish, allowing you to set the hook precisely. The Hubbards are also pretty good fishermen, I'll give them that.
We returned home with full limits of fish each, having seen only one other recreational fishing boat. It is nice fishing in April despite the weather. I had caught my first Tautog and was quite excited to eat one for dinner, and delicious they were.
Now, you may be really excited about Tautog fishing, and now you want to trailer your boat to the Shore and load up. Just remember a few things, its not that easy and I had great guides. Secondly, we don't really like people we don't know coming down here and catching all of our fish. So what you need to do is send me a message, well get to know each other, you can bring your boat down, and we will go fishing together.