Monday, June 23, 2008

June 23 The No-Shows


This morning I went out to catch bait for a late morning Shark Trip. By 10:00 my crew had cancelled because of thunder outside their motel window. Oh well, it did look ominous. The bait fishing was fantastic. Acres of Spanish Mackerel and Bluefish. These fish weren't huge, my Spanish Mackerel and Bluefish were from 13" to 18", but their numbers were outstanding. The only thing that made the fishing difficult was because they were located on a shoal and the tide and wind made it real sloppy. Regardless, in 90 minutes of casting, I caught 24 Spanish Mackerel and 20 Bluefish. My live well was loaded with bait and a nice limit of Spanish Mackerel on ice. On the way home I did stop and bait up a Shark. A nice Bluefish under a ballon quickly attracted a 100+ pound Blacktip. Since it was just me, I tried this on a light spinning rod with 10# test. It looked good until the first jump. Probably 6 feet high and at least 3 complete twists. When Mr. Blacktip hit the water the line parted and it was over. I think it would've been a great session on the shoal today. Oh well, back to Hatteras this afternoon.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

June 22 Big Blacktip Sharks

Good Shark fishing inside and a 33" Cobia outside. Everything was caught while casting from the tower. The Cobia was released as were the Sharks. Two 100+ pound Blacktips put on a great show. One of them jumped 17 times and nearly spooled a TLD 15 twice. All of the Shark action came in 3 feet of water. The final tally was 4 Blacktip Sharks, 1 Blacknose Shark, and 1 Cobia from the Bouy Chain. I hope this inshore fishing is getting ready to take off here in Carteret County.

Friday, June 20, 2008

June 20 Amberjacks and Barracudas

Went out by myself today to see what I could find. Caught a few Spanish Mackerel first. Looked for a Flounder and struck out. Then I missed a Barracuda on the tube. Caught 3 Amberjacks on metal. Then it got interesting. I pulled in half an Amberjack. I tossed him back out on one of my "Shark Rigs" and Mr Cuda was still there! He quickly devoured the rest of my Amberjack. Three monster jumps and a smoking run later, I released a nice 54" Barracuda. My Bogagrip bounced around the 40 pound mark and I released him pretty quick and in great shape. Probably my career best Barracuda. A thunderstorm then chased to the north, but I stopped on 1 other wreck and caught more 2 Amberjacks on top water plugs. My final tally was 4 Spanish Mackerel, 6 Amberjacks (8-30 pounds), and a 54" Barracuda. No self portraits today. The Cuda would've made a nice picture.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Open this Week and the Weather looks Nice


I'll be looking to catch Flounders, Mackerels, Amberjacks, Barracudas, Spadefish, Sharks, and I might even go look for a NC Tarpon this week. Give me a call if interested!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Back to Hatteras Tommorrow


I'm going back to Hatteras tommorrow morning........I'm sure there will be a nice little run of Cobias in the Beaufort Inlet area due to my absence. Go get them guys. Also--Happy Birthday Mike

June 8 Observing Marine Life

If we caught what we saw today, it would've been an epic for McCrae Grady and his crew. Everything was different today. For starters, we made a 24 mile round trip to catch bait and we loaded the boat with perfect sized Menhaden on my 2nd throw. Sadly, it went downhill from there! On the fishing grounds, we couldn't hardly get a bite, period. No Cobias, no Rays, and no Sharks. Unbelievible for June with an incoming tide and a light SW wind! By lunch time we went riding and even though in the end we had nothing to show for it, it was an amazing ride! After an uneventful tour of the entire Shoal at Cape Lookout we were making the return trip back to the west side when we found 1 small area that was alive with fish. Cobias, Tarpon, and Sharks. Yeah, I said Tarpon. 11 Tarpon total, 2 groups of 4 and 1 group of 3. Plus, at least 8 Cobia. Jeff, who was with me in the tower, will never forget when that "tadpole" (Cobia) turned broadside and went from 10" to 50 pounds in an instant!! And, giant schools of Thread Herring pushing right on the shoals. The only problem was every single one of these fish were in 2 foot of water with a rapidly "drying out" shoal in front of them. We could only approach from the west. To do this I had to "attempt" to cross about 100 yards of 3 foot water with a 3 foot SW ground swell breaking on our stern. This was just to get into a long casting situation. That, my friends, is an impossible proposition. Long casts were made from a wildly pitching deck and tower. A few were close and might have had a chance, but nothing ate. We weighed every option. We considered anchoring up and bait fishing, but to safely anchor, we would have been probably 200 yards from the fish. There was NO ANSWER to this fishing problem. It was nice to see those fish, finally. Sorry to the crew. We rode 90 miles and caught a 2 lb. Bluefish, a Spanish Mackerel, and a Shark. We also observed a 8' wide Spotted Eagle Ray and 2 Leatherback Turtles, very closely!

June 7 Amberjacks bail out the Cobias, again




Once again we spent the day Cobia fishing and fishing was extremely poor. We spent several hours at Cape Lookout bait fishing and it was a pretty interesting mix of Sharks up to 85 pounds and Southern Stingrays, and a Loggerhead Turtle. After that we rode the shoals and found 1 Cobia cruising. A nice 50+ pounder that would not bite! Our travels eventually lead us to a wreck where the guys caught 5 Amberjacks on bucktails and metal. These AJs ranged from 20-28 pounds each. Fun, but not what we wanted! We tried to catch Spadefish but they wouldn't cooperate. When it was over, Dexter Davis and crew had rode 98 miles with me and had 0 Cobias in the box. Very Disappointing!

Friday, June 6, 2008

June 6 Catching Bait



It's not supposed to blow, so it's time for Sight Casting right? Well, it wasn't sopposed to blow today either. Yeah right. I thought I'd enjoy a day of easy scouting and fishing today with my brother, Mike. Wrong. With with the 5-10 SW forecast, it was easily blowing 18-20 so we made the 25 mile round trip run to the bait. I hoped. We found a few dozen and made a stand in Bft Inlet on the tail of the incoming tide. We caught 1 Southern Stingray and 1 Sharpnose Shark in a 45 minute fishing session.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

June 3 Amazing Day at Hatteras



Fishing was incredible today! Cobia was the target, but we weren't hard-headed. It was a Spanish mackerel event taking place on Diamond Shoals. I started out alone and caught my 15 Spanish Mackerel in 15 casts and then released probably 40 more. These Spanish Mackerel were 1 to 3 pounders. There was so many Mackerel in the water, it was nearly impossible to concentrate on finding a Cobia.
Later in the day, Don and Tina and their kids joined me and we caught 58 Spanish Mackerel and then.....Here comes Mr. Cobia right at me, a good cast and a quick hook-up. A hour later and Tina has herself a 65 pound Cobia. Nice Cobia, but the story today was the Spanish Mackerel. I have never seen that many in one general area. Everywhere I looked there was loose schools of 50-200 fish and this was in a huge area. It was obvious that they were spawning. From the numbers I saw, I'd guess it was a sucessful day for reproduction!

June 2 61 pound Cobia



Fishing out of Hatteras Inlet, I got 1 cast this afternoon and made it work on a 61 pound Cobia. This one was a beast on 12# mono and a bucktail. Close to 20 minutes to the boat and a terror on the gaff. It's always an adventure when fishing alone!

Monday, June 2, 2008

May 30 Diamond Shoals Tower and Cobias

I picked a terrible day to leave the camera at home! David Rose and I went out looking for Cobia and we found 6 of them. However, for a variety of reasons, most of them gave us the slip! When the day was done, we had a much better time casting top water plugs to the 1000+ Amberjacks that called Diamond Shoals Lighttower home. By the end of the day we had caught 6 Amberjacks up to 25 pounds, 4 Triggerfish, 15 Black Sea Bass, and tossed back a pair of undersized Cobias. We saw 4 additional Cobias including a 60+ pounder on the Hesperides that looked real hard but would not bite! Other than that we saw Ocean Sunfish, and lots of Bluefish and Spanish Mackerel. The Amberjack fishing was incredibly exciting because on nearly every cast there would be dozens of Jacks in a complete frenzy around the plug until one of them finally got hooked. The view from the tower was awesome!