Trophy Striped Bass off Piney and Ragged Points

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Southern, Lower Potomac
Location: Piney Point and Coles Point

My fishing partner put "Tight Lines" in at Pt Lookout. His 22' walkaround has 2' over mine, and that extra 2' and trim tabs sure made a difference this day. My foam PFD vest was doing double duty as insulation under my rain slicker. We ran up to the south side of St. Georges Island and trolled west off the edge in 50 feet until past the Piney Point gas docks, there having been 40"+ stripers in this section over the past 2 weeks. We occasionally marked large fish on the bottom migrating and large fish and bait in the midwater feeding zone, but no bite. Armed with in-law intel from Saturday when there was a slow bite in the area between Piney Point and Coles Point, we headed over towards Coles Point where there might be bait carried around the point by the ebb. There were about 5 boats strung out in about 60 feet of water, most east of Ragged Point. With snarly weather in a very bad mood, our plan was to circle back from Coles Point and troll downriver east on the Virginia side. But approaching Ragged Point Light, we found a bait chute coming off the west side of Ragged Point into the main channel in 60 feet of water, marked some large fish, and pulled in 41.5"/33.15 lb (on 6 oz green and yellow 12" parachute) and 42.5"/32.5 lb stripers (on 10 oz white parachute on an umbrella behind a 16 oz trolling weight). We had barely got the first one into the box when the second one hit. The net was too small, so we lipped the fishes with a Rapala grip. Working the 42.5" which didn't want to give up on the heavily weighted umbrella was like trying to haul in a Mack truck with the brake locked sliding backwards down a hill. But, not a bad result for someone 2 months shy of 71 four months after spinal surgery! When we cleaned the fish, we discovered that the smaller fish was pre-spawn while the longer fish was post spawn.