NEW YORK

Point Lookout

Cod fishing improved Monday on the party boat Captain Al, Capt. Tom Weiss said. The trip’s eight anglers bagged 30 cod, and the fishing was best in 50- to 60-foot shallows. Previously, the angling was tougher, apparently because snow runoff from warmer weather cooled the shallow waters closer to shore. Depths 120 to 130 feet, farther from shore, were the only place that gave up some cod then. Cod usually school the shallows at first in winter then school deeper later in the season, as the ocean cools. A blizzard is now forecast to drop deep snow, and weather is supposed to be cold for some time. Forecasts looked questionable for whether today’s trip could sail, and a gale warning was posted for the afternoon. The cod on Monday’s trip were clammed, and a few started to be jigged aboard about a week earlier. Lots of bait was marked in recent trips, and maybe that was herring, but the bait was unidentified. A few mackerel were hooked in the past days, the first caught aboard this season. Cod fishing peaked at about this time aboard the past couple of years. The Captain Al is this site's closest boat to New Jersey that’s sailing for cod daily. Trips run 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. See More Info. Call: 516-623-2248.

VIRGINIA

Virginia Beach

The weekly party boat trip to Norfolk Canyon was weathered out Saturday once again with Rudee Inlet Charters, Capt. Skip Feller said. Weather forecasts look like this weekend’s trip will be cancelled, too. This has been a tough stretch of weather that forced the trips to be cancelled since the first of the year, but that happens during some winters. The trips, sailing each winter, fish the deep waters mostly for blueline tilefish, but also for black belly rosefish, wreckfish, barrelfish and more. Sometimes the trips push even deeper, farther offshore, for golden tilefish and groupers. That’s if blueline tilefishing, done first during the trips, is good enough to allow time. The trips are slated for 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. every Saturday each winter. Sometimes anglers are offered to sail on other days, like a Sunday or a Monday, if weather looks better then. Call: 757-422-5700 or 757-425-3400. Visit Web Site.

Striped bass were yet to school within 3 miles from shore this year, a report on Virginia Beach Fishing Center’s website said. They swam beyond 3 miles, where fishing for them is closed, and plenty of bait schooled within 3 miles, and birds worked the bait along the waters. Weather is supposed to turn especially cold in the next days, and anglers hope that will cause stripers to chase the bait closer to shore. But if it doesn’t, “we will continue … hoping for the best … because fishing is just that … fishing!” the report said. “Sometimes it is awesome, and sometimes it stinks …,” but you don’t stop going, it said. A few boats sailed for stripers Monday from the marina, but found none on the legal fishing grounds. Lots of whales swam the area. Stripers, big, mature ones that migrate from the entire eastern seaboard, spend winter off Virginia each year. Sometimes they remain there the whole season, and sometimes they school as far south as North Carolina, depending on how cold the winter becomes. Fishing for them is open in the ocean from January through March from Virginia within 3 miles from shore. The fish usually swim closer to the coast at first during that time. Later during that period, they usually hold offshore, before migrating back north for spring. Visit Web Site.

FLORIDA

Islamorada

Some of the traveling charters to the Florida Keys fished this weekend with Jersey Cape Guide Service from Sea Isle City, N.J., Capt. Joe Hughes said. Mike Spaeder and son Mike joined the outings Friday and Saturday, fishing the Everglades. On Saturday, they tackled a bunch of snook to 26 inches, a half-dozen redfish to 27 or 28 inches and some mangrove snappers, black drum, sheepshead, jacks and ladyfish. On Sunday, they beat 20 snook and some speckled sea trout, black drum, jacks and ladyfish. Other fish were in the mix on the trips, and the anglers had a shot at a tarpon, not much of a shot, back near port on Saturday evening. The tarpon didn’t connect, but the anglers caught jacks there. Chillier weather affected tarpon fishing during the weekend. But weather warmed on Monday, so a trip that day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, sight-fished for sharks on the flats.  Three lemon sharks to 50 pounds and two bonnethead sharks were released, and two sharks pulled the hook, and two broke off. The fishing gave up action the whole morning. On the trips, mostly live shrimp were fished on jigheads, and sometimes Gulps were tossed on the jigs. The tarpon was targeted with a livelined ladyfish, and the sharks were fished for with live shrimp. The traveling charters fish each year from Christmas to Easter, mostly on weekends and holidays. One option is to arrive on a Friday, fish all day Saturday and part of Sunday, return on Sunday, and be back to work on Monday. The trips can be a mini, fish-filled vacation. Visit Web Site. Call: 609-827-3442.

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