Reel in a Whopper
Our location directly on Red Wing Lake, just minutes from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, gives our resident anglers the perfect location for year-round fishing adventures!
Easily accessed from our beautiful gazebo/pier, Red Wing Lake contains a wide variety of freshwater fish, including sunfish, white perch, crappie, chain pickerel, gar, bowfin, catfish, and of course largemouth bass. With limited fishing pressure, many of these are large lunkers, just waiting to be caught — and released! Snap a photo and let your prize catch grow even larger for the next lucky angler! With its brown-colored lake water, live baits like shiners, red wiggler worms and nightcrawlers work best but artificial lures like “buzz baits” also work, by attracting fish through noise. The action can also continue after dark, using our pier’s lights that accommodate night fishing. During daylight hours, a real bonus while fishing is the sighting of resident raptors — ospreys and eagles — as they cruise the lake searching for their own meals.
If saltwater is your fishing forte, nearby Rudee Inlet offers easy shore fishing access just a short 10-minute ride away. Seasonal catches include bluefish, speckled trout, croaker, flounder, striped bass, shark, red drum, black drum and Norfolk spot. For the more adventuresome, Rudee Inlet also provides head boat fishing trips as well as charter fishing trips that can produce mahi-mahi, tuna and even marlin. Deep drop trips target tilefish and black sea bass as well as other dwellers of the Continental Shelf. Virginia has a free extensive year-round Saltwater Fishing Tournament that offers handsome citations for notable catches for most available species.
Atlantic Shores resident and retired Virginia Beach City fishing blogger Mike Halperin has frequently sampled local waters and can attest to the availability of noteworthy catches, such as his Virginia state record dusky shark that weighed in at 673 pounds! Want to “reel in” more information on area fishing on the Chesapeake Bay or the Atlantic Ocean? Grab a copy of Mike’s fishing memoir by contacting the Atlantic Shores sales office (757-716-3000) or searching the title on Amazon.com: True Tales of the Tide: An Angler’s Lifelong Quest.
Fresh or salt, on-campus or off, we’ve got fishing any way you like it!
