For weeks now I have talking about the striper fishing off the Virginia Beach shores and the size of the fish that they are catching up there. Every time I have tried to get there the timing has been off for one reason or the other. The wind blew too hard, nobody could tag along with me or the money was short.

But I had a small window this week and I knew I could catch a monster but it would take a lot of preparation to do it right.

I put some gas in the boat and the truck and headed to one of my favorite tackle shops in Virginia Beach. Ocean’s East Two is located off of Route 13 on the way to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and has everything you need if you have a checkbook big enough, so I went in and picked up a new rod and reel and had it loaded with 40-pound line. I also picked up a giant ball head lure and headed off to the land of giants.

We go to the spot and the life there was amazing. The school of baitfish was about two or three square miles with birds diving and whales moving through them like dolphin.

I put my new bait on my new rod. I had other rods out, but I knew to catch a giant you had to fish with giant baits so my best bet for the day was an ugly, yellow ball head jig that looked nothing like any fish or bait I had ever seen in my life.

We trolled around for hours with little luck and all the while we watched everyone around us catching fish. So I started to change up my speeds and length of line in the water in order to figure out my best presentation. I dropped my speed to around 2 miles an hour and put out a mile of line and sure enough the rod went down.

I picked it up and started to battle this fish, It felt a little light to me for a big fish but still I kept on reeling it in. When I got it next to the boat the fish was truly one of the giants I had seen on the fishing reports and it was then that the fish finally realized that it was hooked so off it ran again.

It had two more runs after that and I was getting very excited because every time I got it to the boat I knew that this beast was finally the rockfish I had been waiting for.

I got it next to the boat and it was still a little green but I didn’t want to take any chances of losing her, so I handed the rod over to my partner in the boat and bent over the side to grab it.

This is when I noticed just how big this fish was. She was at least 45 pounds with a giant head and that ugly yellow bait hanging out of her mouth. I pulled the line towards me to try to get my hands in her mouth and she gave one last jerk on the bait and the line snapped right in front of me.

The fish just floated there on the surface with my new bait stuck in her mouth and looked at me like she knew what had just happened. In a flash I was heading over the side just knowing I could grab this beast of a fish I had always been looking for, but could not get my hands on.

Just then my partner in crime grabbed the back of my jacket and pulled me in before I could get over the side. Sure it was cold water and 2 miles off shore in the ocean but hey, this was a big fish.

As I watched my giant swim back to the depths with my ugly yellow bait still in its mouth I realized that the land of giants had won the battle again.

With no more ball jigs of that size in the tackle box and running out of daylight I decided to run back to the docks.

Talking to the locals that I saw catching fish all around us I found out that the trick was to put the big baits right on the bottom and below the bait fish with a speed of no more than 2 miles an hour.

I had figured out the right pattern and speed through trial and error but all I got out it was a fishing story for my readers and an empty checking account.

The good news is that payday is right around the corner and I got my eye on some big, ugly, yellow, white and whatever other color baits I can find.

So watch out big fish, Mike is on the way back to say hi.

What’s biting and where ...

The offshore report at the Outer Banks has been tuna. When the wind has allowed they have been on the tuna with limits of yellow fin and the blue fin. But it is still catch and release on them, so watch your regulations.

The blue fin have started to move south from Virginia Beach but are still available with the right permits out of Virginia waters. You want to drag yellow or white Mojos or tandem rigs. Make sure you have the right tackle for these monsters because the fish have been over 300 pounds some times.

The inshore report is tile fish near the beach but other than that it is skates and dogfish.

The local report has seemed to slow a little with the sound bridge bringing in some fish but it is not as good as it was a couple of weeks ago. I went down there this week and had a couple of take downs on stretch lures but no fish.

The ponds around here are beginning to show signs of fish with some nice largemouth bass being caught on large spinner baits and live minnows.

I went to a pond this week on the kayak and caught 5 keepers in three hours so if you can stand the cold go out and try it.

I know I am not the only die hard out there so send me a picture and a report to fishingwithmike921@yahoo.com and I will put it in next week’s report.

If anybody catches a 50-pound rock fish up in Virginia this week with an ugly yellow ball head jig in its mouth, it’s mine. I want it back.

Mike Sweeney is a sports columnist for The Daily Advance.