Originally posted by panhandlehunter
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I’ve caught both. I worked for a couple years on the NE coast, definitely different fish. Weakfish is like a giant sand trout with croaker like markings, yellow fins, and live in different water than speckled trout. They like deep water, you catch them on metal jigs, smaller ones can be caught in the bays. They have them in Florida but you wouldn’t catch one wading. They tend to stay offshore.
I caught them in Chincoteague Virginia - TIDE RUNNERS is their nickname up there, and out of Crisfield Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay.
The surf side, I used chrome with and red bucktails, stripped with a slice of squid, bottom bouncing for flounder as my primary, mixing things up on drifts following edges and structure where weakfish held in deeper currents and eddies - that swing around barrier island tidal flow zones. They are very tough to target, and they prefer moving water with a lot more depth than speckled trout.
When the white, long curly tail, MR TWISTERS first hit the market, and red leadheads were just starting to become the replacement to the old standby SPECK RIG jigs, so many threw before 1980. Mr Twister 6" tails didn't make it to Hatteras and or Virginia till 1985 or so. The east coast standard is the classic bone white / red trim bucktail jig. And I hated them, and moved into Mr Twister tails and our style of red leadheads, chasing primarily FLUKE. WEAKFISH LOVED THEM and i tore a few decent weakies up using them, since no one around Chincoteague Island down to Cape Charles - had any clue - how to use them and or even any knowledge of them on the market. A lot of those old East Coast surf anglers were traditionalists to points, it handicapped them with new techniques and or methods.
On the Chesapeake Bay side, I caught them fishing 70 - 100 ft down, right out of Crisfield Maryland and the DRUM HOLE area, bottom fishing peeler crabs for black and red drum (redfish). They would pick up the occasional crab setup for drum during June there - the month everything swims back into the Chesapeake Bay for Summer.
My ex Brother In Laws are commercial fishermen on Chincoteague Island Virginia. Back in 1983 up to 1987, I took vacations and ran offshore for extra money with them. We ran gill net highline and lowline rigs - all legal back then - and schools of migrating weakfish would hit the nets at night, checking in 30 - 60ft of water just outside Assateague, Chincoteague and Wallops Island inlet.
Weakfish and Striped Bass - ran at the same time during the springs and falls. The big bluefish would bring up the rear, nothing swimming, wants to be near a massive school of migrating bluefish. They feed like piranhas when they hit a bait feeding frenzy and anything that shines or moves, will get chomped with those nasty teeth.
The largest weakfish I've held, gill net variety and shows the size potential of this species - 22 lbs.
The world record, all tackle Weakfish was caught in Virginia and it went 19lbs.
So I've held fish bigger but, they were netted.
I've caught them as I fished for other species - using baits that fit their profile in the hope I could find a pattern. They scatter badly and are tougher to target than speckled trout because they move with the tides and migrate hundreds of miles - speckled trout do not do this at their level.
Flounder along the Virginia and Eastern Shore barrier islands - I've seen them 14 lbs and up there, they are called DOOR MATS. My largest flatty went 10.5 lbs.
I fished for flounder up there like I was on fire - they go HUGE above HATTERAS.
The darn world record was up there nearby in NJ - went 22 lbs.
lmao! I'm on page 3,348 of Moby ****.
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