Virginia · Blueline tilefish
Can you keep a blueline tilefish in Virginia?
Yes, with limits
recreational vessel
Open todayCloses each year Closed November 16 through May 14 — the season runs May 15 to November 15
No minimum size, May 15 through November 15. The bag depends on the vessel: 3 a day on a private recreational vessel, 5 on a USCG-uninspected for-hire vessel, 7 on a USCG-inspected for-hire vessel — see the other regions on this page.
USCG-uninspected for-hire vessel
Open todayCloses each year Closed November 16 through May 14 — the season runs May 15 to November 15
Same season and no-minimum rule, 5 a day for customers aboard a USCG-uninspected for-hire vessel.
USCG-inspected for-hire vessel
Open todayCloses each year Closed November 16 through May 14 — the season runs May 15 to November 15
Same season and no-minimum rule, 7 a day for customers aboard a USCG-inspected for-hire vessel — the largest of the three tiers.
What we left out on purpose
- A full 'Virginia Trophy Season' for striped bass (36 inches, a permit, May dates) appears on this page but sits inside an HTML comment and is immediately followed, in visible bold text, by the Commission's May 28, 2019 action eliminating that season for the Bay, the Potomac tributaries and the coast. It is left out entirely as abolished, not carried as a fourth striped bass region.
- Kingfish, pompano, crevalle jack, dolphin, swordfish, tuna and wahoo are on VMRC's page only as tournament-citation species (an angler awards program) — none of them carries a Regulation, Minimum Size Limit or Possession Limit field. Tuna, swordfish and wahoo are managed federally under NMFS HMS permits; kingfish, pompano and crevalle jack simply carry no state size or bag rule.
- Federal-waters exceptions are noted by VMRC for black sea bass, scup and summer flounder without giving the federal numbers themselves — those numbers are set by NMFS/the Mid-Atlantic Council and are not carried here.
- The Potomac River and its Virginia tributaries follow Potomac River Fisheries Commission rules instead of VMRC's for striped bass and summer flounder — a bi-state body this schema has no field for.
- Blue catfish (36-inch DWR rule) is left out — that agency and its whole freshwater/tidal-freshwater regulatory set is out of scope for a silo that compares coastal species.
Other species in Virginia
- Striped bass (rockfish)
- Summer flounder
- Black sea bass
- Bluefish
- Cobia
- Red drum (channel bass, redfish)
- Speckled trout (spotted seatrout)
- Grey trout (weakfish)
- Tautog (blackfish)
- Scup (porgy)
- Spanish mackerel
- King mackerel
- Black drum
- Sheepshead
- Atlantic spadefish
- Croaker
- Spot
- Greater amberjack
- American eel
- Grouper (all species, combined)
- Golden tilefish
- Sharks (most species — see notes for exceptions)
- River herring (alewife and blueback herring)
- American shad
- Sturgeon