Flounder and Oyster Toadfish

There is a "crab bloom" happening at South Dock over on the North end of Ocracoke Island. Thousands of Blue Crabs from mature females to babys the size of dimes are everywhere. Oyster Toadfish must love them. Last night I set a personal one day record of 18 Oyster Toadfish. Between the Blue Crabs and Toadfish, Flounder fishing is nearly impossible. The past two nights, I have caught a few Finger Mullet to supplement the Silversides that I've been using for bait. That has helped the Flounder count. I am also starting to collect a very nice bag of Flounder filets and a huge bag of cleaned Blue Crabs. My momma will be happy when I get home. All you can eat Blue Crabs. My Dad, not so happy. Total Catch for 2 Nights: 5 Southern Flounder up to 17", 3 Summer Flounder up to 16", 27 Oyster Toadfish up to 3 lbs, and 1 Black Sea Bass

June 24 The Day that Changed my Life

On June 24, 1988 I woke up as a normal 21 year old idiot. That night when I went to bed my life had changed...... That afternoon I was reeling in a 1 pound Spanish Mackerel that I hooked trolling on a 00 clark spoon in Beaufort Inlet. On its way to the boat, something swallowed it. An hour later I had a 66 pound Amberjack laying on the deck of my Boston Whaler. Life would never again be the same. 33 years ago. Holy Cow. If it wouldn't have happened, where would I be?

Cape Hatteras Blue Crabs and Poor Fishing

I'm back at Cape Hatteras for a wonderful week of ferrying the traveling public across Hatteras Inlet. As always, I will try to catch a few fish while I'm here. So far, the fishing has been as bad I've ever seen it at South Dock in my 10 years of effort. Perhaps its because my fishing time is occurring during the falling tide.... Perhaps there is too much grass and other debris in the water.... What I really think is it is due to the incredible number of Blue Crabs that are dominating my fishing hole.... Wednesday night, I'd had enough of nothing and set a crab pot. Three hours later, I shook 28 Blue Ccrabs out of it. I also dipped a few with my landing net and caught a few on live Mullet. Thursday night's crab count was 16 Blue Crabs out of the Pot. Remember, this is basically a 3-4 hour soak time and baited up with inferior bait. Chopped up Pinfish and Sand Perch aint the best crab bait! Pity the poor Flounder that settles on the bottom at South Dock. He is in for a short stay or he is gonna get his ass pinched! Hopefully, the 60 kt wind and torrential rain we just had will "shuffle the deck".  I did fish Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights with a rod and reel and so far,  it was been nothing to brag about.... At all....  The absolute highlight of my fishing week so far was last night. I had a shot at a Houndfish that made about 3 passes under the ramp where my Ferry was tied up. This was NO ORDINARY Houndfish. At first glance I thought it was a Freshwater Gar. Happens occasionally at Hatteras, especially drought summers and especially after bad storms. But it was so big it couldn't have been a Spotted Gar, the kind are common to NC waters. I thought thats a damn Alligator Gar. The monsterous variety down in Texas and the Gulf States. On it's next pass I got a better look, it was clearly just a Houndfish. But this monster was pushing 7 feet and had an enormous girth for this species. The MFer looked like a damn Wahoo! It would've been a "News Maker" if I could've landed it, I promise that. Total Catch for the 3 Nights: 13 Oyster Toadfishs up to 2 lbs, 2 Southern Flounder, 9 Sand Perch, 1 Black Sea Bass, 4 Bluefish, 2 Atlantic Silversides, 4 Croakers, and 5 Pinfish

June 21 Largemouth Bass in Beaufort in the Morning

Before leaving for Hatteras and a week of work on the Ferry, Korey and I made one last early morning trip to "Lunkerville" and the fish were biting, just not the big ones. Between the two of us, I think we caught 9 Largemouth Bass and I had the largest at 3 lbs. Little bit of a letdown...... I did have a  big one eat my plastic worm, but I missed on my hook-set.......... I also caught a decent Bluegill on a plastic worm. I tried to use him for live bait. It was a long cast to the pot hole I was targetting. On my first cast, things were looking good! The Bluegill was running around in circles and jumping out of the water. I was getting ready to "raise my Bass Bar!" Then the Bluegill got grassed up and it was over. I reeled it in, cleaned him off, and re-cast him. Nothing. Damn. Total Catch for the Morning: 9 Largemouth Bass up to 3 lbs and 1 Bluegill

June 20 Quest for Something Big

After last nights blow, we decided it was too windy for the Ocean this morning. So, after a long "should we go" discussion we got a late start and went looking for live bait and planned to "roll the dice" on a BIG FISH. Pretty quickly we caught a cast net full of Menhaden and headed to Cape Lookout. We got about 2 hours of incoming tide and it was pretty steady action. Unfortunately, our big fish turned out to be a 75 lb Southern Stingray. We also caught a 23 lb Blacknose Shark. The light-line was zinging left and right. Three missed strikes, a few Bluefish, and 2 Houndfish were causing the commotion. We were hoping for a shot at a Tarpon today but it never materialized and I've seen a couple of 20-25 lb King Mackerel up there the past couple days. Regardless, it never happened for us today.... The last hour of fishing was spent scouring the skinny water and sightcasting to Blacktip Sharks. We didn't get a strike, but we had some "hair raising" encounters. Total Catch for the Half Day: 3 Bluefish, 1 Southern Stingray, 1 Blacknose Shark, 2 Houndfish, and 8 Smooth Dogfish

DIABLO's Final Resting Spot

Since I discovered them in the the mid 1980's Beaufort has had 3 Ponds down in Lennoxville that were legendary producers of Giant Largemouth Bass. Anyone able to access them was able to catch "Bass of a Lifetime" on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, the place was nearly inpenetrable. Thick brush on the shoreline and extensive shallow flats of mud and mats of grass protected tiny pot holes in the grass that were teeming with 8-12 lb Largemouth Bass. These legendary Bass can supposedly leap 6 feet out of the water a snag snag Dragonflys, Redwinged Blackbirds, and Purple Martins from the air! Huge Water Moccasins ruled the shoreline and Giant Eastern Diamondback Rattle Snakes ruled the approaches to the Ponds..... We can deal with all that. However, the ONE THING that stood between you and fishing history was a Giant Pit Bull/Rottweiler mix named Diablo that lived nearby and ruled these woods with his blood curdling bark, his snarl, and his mouth foaming growl. The 50 feet of heavy gauge, rusty chain that drug behind him added to his mystique. I always figured he pulled down the side of a house to escape his bonds.... Legend had it he had survived a few Shotgun blasts and it only made him meaner and stealthier. That Dog made the Legend of the Lennoxville Ponds on par with the legends of  Bigfoot, Sasquatch, The Abomible Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster.... Today, Max and I paid homage to Diablo's final resting place. The fear of my adolescence has been exercised. Maybe I can sleep tonight for the first time since 1985 without being haunted by Diablo. My God, has it been 26 years since I felt his hot breath and rabid slobber on my bare legs as I ran for my life...... and dropped 2 rod and reels and my tacklebox......all the way to Freedom Park! I never looked back and it took 20 years to return....

June 19 Bass and Bluegills

Yesterday afternoon and today I fished 3 different ponds. Fishing was poor, bad, and decent in each different location. Korey and Max were with me today. Kory and I caught about 5 Largemouth Bass each. This time, the size was a little different. I had the biggest fish at 2 lbs. Yesterday afternoon, I caught 4 Bluegills on a bettlespin. Low Low Low water in the Beaufort Mung Holes. In danger of massive die-offs in a couple of places. Total Catch for the 3 Ponds: 10 Largemouth Bass and 4 Bluegill

June 18 The One Hour Fishing Lesson

Korey gave it to me today in Pond #1. A 6 lb and a 7 lb Largemouth Bass where I was the PHOTOGRAPHER and not the ANGLER. I changed baits one time, from a buzzbait to a plastic worm, and I couldn't hardly get a cast off without snapping a picture. That one little hesitation cost me!! Plus, Korey had the home field advantage???? Things settled down on Pond #2 and I found me a 4 and 5 pound Largemouth Bass. We each caught 5 Largemouth Bass each and this was in 60 minutes total in and out time! Incredible. Total catch for the Day: 10 Largemouth Bass up to 7 lbs

June 17 Long Slow Afternoon

After getting killed off the Beach all day Wednesday, and with 15 kt SW wind and 3-4 foot seas battering you every 3 seconds..... Today I played it closer to shore. First we caught 5-7 dozen perfect baits. Filled the live well with hand sized Menhaden. Things were looking good. Then we headed up to Cape Lookout to fish. Not necessarily expecting a Cobia, but wishful. I would be happy catching "cool Sharks". And on the incoming tide, all was going well. Steady action with a variety of good and bad things. Then while comtemplating leaving, a school of Tarpon appeared a 100 yards east of us. Moving away but reason to stay. Fishing continued to be interestingly good. Then the tide changed...... For the next 6 hours we ran 60 miles and tried 5 different things. Failure X 5...... We did see our bait get nervous and raise our awareness.... When that's a highlight, YOU ARE IN TROUBLE. Regardless, it was a good day. We didn't get pulverized and these guys understood good day/bad day better than most.... Thanks Kevin and I'm sorry it wasn't better. It was long and I tried everything I knew and everything that we had! Total Catch for the Day: 3 Southern Stingrays up to 75 lbs, 1 Blacktip Shark at 50 lbs, 1 Blacknose Shark at 35 lbs, 3 Smooth Dogfish, 4 Bluefish, 1 Cobia, 10 Black Sea Bass, 1 Southern Flounder, 1 Pinfish, 3 Oyster Toadfish, 3 Sharpnose Sharks

June 15 Blow Baby Blow

5 -10 west winds and 1-2 foot seas forecasted....,. And at 8 am when we cleared the Cape Lookout Shoals we were looking into 15-18 kt NE winds and 3 foot wind chop mixed with 4 foot ground swell. Great. My entire 3 progged plan of attack centered on fishing in this direction. After a long thought process and discussion, we rolled the dice that #1 it was a early on a long full day trip and #2 things could change rapidly if the wind fell out.... So the first several hours consisted of a rough and dangerous search of the Shoals that resulted in NOTHING and a very tough job of fishing a Wreck in heavy seas and high winds. The Wreck fishing yielded 3 big fish lost in structure and a decent sized fish lost to a mystery cut-off. Barracuda? Raised steel? We'll never know. We left this spot after lunch time with probably 20 Black Sea Bass, 4 of which were 3 pounds each. So after another meeting, we headed for another Wreck 4 miles north. Once we got there, the wind and current was less and 2 things were obviously in large supply. Spadefish and Sand Tigers. At first glance, the Spadefish were gonna chew and we were smart enough to pick up Spadefish bait that morning. Toss out a Jellyball and they would boil on it. DAY SAVERS! However, the wind made casting light baits impossible and sea/current would set us directly in the Spadefish schools in a matter of seconds. We tried every angle and every approach. Nothing would work. All we could do was watch them eat and when we presented our baits, feeding would stop. I couldn't believe it. The day was turning from bad to disasterous. Making matter worse was the curious habit the Sand Tiger Sharks, big ones at 100+ pounds each, had of rising off the bottom and swimming to the boat and them diving back to the bottom. Daisy chains of them. And them sumbitches wouldn't bite either! We even sacrificed a 3 lb Sea Bass for bait. Nothing would bite. Period. We ended up a rotten day with a an hour of bait fishing inside the Cape Lookout Bight fishing with inferior bait (peanut Shad) and caught a few Dogsharks, Sharpnose Sharks, and Southern Stingrays. The highlight (lowlight) was a 30 lb Cownose Ray that Brad fought after purposely snagging on the Shoals. Worst day ever, mostly because Brad, 2 days out of Afghanistan, and I really wanted to make it happen for him..... Total Catch for the Day: 20 Black Sea Bass up to 3 lbs, 1 Cownose Ray, 3 Smooth Dogfish, 1 Sharpnose Shark, and 2 Southern Stingrays

June 13 Dock Rock

Tonight I fished for 30 seconds. I made one toss with a gulp 5" jerk shad and caught a 5 lb Striped Bass that was harrassing Silversides around the Ferry Ramps. There was 2 Striped Bass there and the wromg one ate my bait. The other looked to be 7-8 pounds. He hightailed it when his partner was hooked. Total Catch for the Night: 1 Striped Bass

June 11 Slow Flounder Bite

The action has pretty much ground to a halt. Paul Terry didn't even make an effort. I fished all night. Pretty much 4.5 hours of fishing and caught 5 Flounders. I did manage to land a 17" Southern Flounder and lost another nice one. However, that aint quite fast enough for me. Also, there is nothing else to eat your bait. When you fish a live bait on the bottom, under lights, near heavy structure, less than a quarter mile from Hatteras Inlet, and go an hour between bites.... Thats terrible fishing! The only other bite I had was when I pretty much sight-casted a Silverside to a Stingray in the shallows. Mistake born out of boredom! But I did manage to land a 10lb Atlantic Stingray a few minutes later. Total Catch for the Night: 5 Southern Flounders up to 17" and a Atlantic Stingray

June 10 More Flounders, Bigger Flounders

We were using a new cast net that allowed us to better catch the Silversides and as a result we have more bait, livelier bait, and larger bait. The Flounder fishing is a little better. However, the lack of by-catch is amazing. Paul Terry faded on me around 3am again tonight, but he did catch a 20", 3 lb Southern Flounder. Total Catch for the Night: 4 Southern Flounder up to 20", 8 Summer Flounder, and 2 Oyster Toadfish

June 9 Flounders

Still no Finger Mullet. Live baiting for Flounder has pretty much evolved into moving dead Silversides across the bottom. Paul Terry faded on me tonight so our head to head fishing battle ended. The actual fishing was so-so. Long waits between Flounder bites and little else eating your bait. Weird. Total Catch for the Night: 6 Southern Flounder up to 16", 4 Summer Flounder, and 4 Oyster Toadfish

June 7 and 8 Hatteras Dock Fishing

Night 1 (June 7) Capt Marty vs. Paul Terry. I fished sea urchins and blue crabs for Sheepshead most of the night. I had one bite on a crab that I missed. We were not able to catch any decent live bait for Flounder.... Paul fished a 2 hook bottom rig. The catch of the night was Paul's Gulf Sea Mullet, which is the first Sea Mullet I've ever seen caught in the Ferry Basin in my many nights of hardcore fishing in this location since 2002. Victory to Paul Terry

Night 2 (June 8) Capt Marty vs. Paul Terry. Fish were biting tonight. The headliner was my 1 lb 4 oz Southern Sea Mullet that I caught on a live Silverside. Very strange combination. On my next cast, I caugh a 1 lb Southern Sea Mullet. Catching a Sea Mullet on live bait, at night, under lights and by heavy structure is not a normal catch. Doing it back to back was Double Weird. The Flounder and the Oyster Toadfish were also biting. Victory to Capt Marty Total Catch for Both Nights: 2 Southern Sea Mullet, 1 Gulf Sea Mullet, 11 Southern Flounder, 14 Sand Perch, 14 Oyster Toadfish,1 5 Bluefish, 7 Black Sea Bass, 8 Croaker, 9 Pinfish, and 1 Conger Eel

My Nightmare

Here I sit at Hatteras, start on Night Run tonight. The Ocean is calm and winds are light..... And my boat is sitting in Beaufort.... Looks like I finally made a smart financial decision! To make matters worse, Chris is on the water in a Top Secret Carteret County Location and he is tossing deck-dried Sand Perch into a school of Tarpon... Good Grief... You can never be ready for those things when they pop up while sightcasting!  Anyhow, I will be pursueing Flounder, Sheepshead and trying to scam my way onto a boat somewhere before the week is up.....

June 6 Chopper Bluefish one more time

Chris and I made a quick trip on his boat today and tried to whack the Chopper Bluefish one more time. I'm due back at Hatteras tommorrow so I knew this would be my last run at a Citation Bluefish for 2011. The last one I weighed was 14 lbs 12 oz. Ouch.... So today, we found far less numbers. They bit good for a little while. Then they shut down. We each hooked at least 5. We actually landed 1 big Bluefish each. Nowhere near 15 lbs. Oh well. I did catch a smaller Blue on a big popper. The highlight of the day was some serious "Ray Viewing".... Total Catch for the Day: 3 Bluefish up to 2 lbs

June 4 Excellent Top Water Bluefish

I took Korey and Max today for a half day adventure and yesterday's weather changed our plan. Then I had a cast netting catastrophe. Then an hour was wasted catching 2 Menhaden, and one of them disappeared! Now in panic mode, I prayed the "new wave" Bluefish with Phds in Sportfishing Avoidance might save me.... And they did! For some reason, this morning nearly every group we cast a top water plug to responded with reckless abandon. It was like the old days. At one point, I could hear one of my bit off plugs rattling a half mile away. Then came the calvary, and the bite faded. After the good time with the Chopper Bluefish, we went sight casting and found nothing to cast to... Later, we diced a Bluefish for bait and caught a Sharpnose Shark and a Butterfly Ray. The weather was better than yesterday, but tide and current is still horrific and is killing the inshore sight casting fishery. The Cape Lookout Shoals are also evolving into a new form and I despise it... Shark Island is becoming the new Cape Point. Acres and acres of shallow, sandy flats to the west are also killing the Shoals. I must say in decades of fishing Carteret County, I have never seen so much sand! It sucks. Total Catch for the Day: 8 Bluefish from 8-14 lbs, a 60 lb Butterfly Ray, and a Sharpnose Shark

June 3 What's Crazier?

Whats crazier, a weatherman that says light and variable winds and 1-2 foot seas and sends us out in a Center Console Nightmare......... Or a 300 lb Blue Marlin swimming in 90 foot of water? So this morning with a great weather forecast, we decided to go Dolphin fishing. We caught a couple of Almaco Jacks early and by 830am, it was increasingly difficult to drop live baits on a wreck in 90 feet of water. With seas and winds increasing, we started our troll to the SE with the wind and seas at our backs. Two hours later, we did a 180 degree turn and the first wave we met dipped the bow and put 100 gallons of sea water on deck... What was that forecast again? So now we're 30 miles offshore and beating our way back into 6 foot seas and a 20 kt NE wind. Great. Picking at the Dolphins. To make the story short and sweet, 2 hours later we are inshore of the 14 Bouy and I see an 8 foot torpedo surfing on top in the mounting seas. Hey what the hell is that I ask myself..... Its basic appearance was a combo of darker shades of brown and purple, it was a very rigid swimmer, its pectoral, tail, and dorsal fins were erect, it has some amount of striped coloration on its flanks, and (I'll be damned) that's a nice beak sticking off his freaking nose.... But this is 90 foot of water, so it can't be... Regardless, a quirk of fate and turn of fate just before seeing the damn thing has put it on a path, crossing right to left, right through our 6 ballyhoo spread. So I scream at my stunned crew, "Y'all see that?" And 3 out of 3, everyone sees it, everyone one of them argues every sensible excuse I can give as to how it can't be a Blue Marlin... So 3 veteran fishermen and one relatively inexperienced fisherman all agree... It was a screwed up, not hungry, somewhat "lost" Blue Marlin that passed through our spread, approximately 60 feet off our stern. The 6 foot waves that obscured him a couple of times, also showed him in plain view to us a couple of times. The angry, but educated fisherman in me wouldn't allow me to believe what I was seeing. Not here, not now. If the bastard would've just ate a damn ballyhoo, all doubt would've been removed..... We were so mad a Skip Waters, that Blue Marlin was headed for the damn grill if he'd been hungry and "made our day".  Anyway, 40 Black Sea Bass and a timely Coast Guard Boarding later we came in and had a long discussion. The unanamous opinion- it was a Blue Marlin.... Total Catch for the Day: 12 Dolphin to 16 lbs, 2 Almaco Jacks to 18 lbs, 40 Black Sea Bass to 3 lbs

June 1 Big Bluefish, Amberjacks, Black Sea Bass

Today we searched for an elusive 15 lb Bluefish. We failed. We found quite a few 8-11 lb Bluefish on poppers, bucktails, and live bait. We also found hundreds of Chopper Bluefish in groups of 5 to 20 that would show absolutely NO INTEREST in anything we threw at them, ahead of them, behind them.... Whatever..... Smart Bluefish. An unusual new for 2011 Bluefish characteristic that I don't like! We also found some large and hungry Black Sea Bass. We also found some educated Amberjacks that clearly hadn't learned the danger of a 3 lb Black Sea Bass swimming on top. Sorry Mr Amberjack. Chris also had a hook break after a 40 minute battle with a rather large Cobia that ate a 4 lb Black Sea Bass. We had him in plain view several times with about 10 Jacks as an escort. When the damn hook broke, that took alot of wind out of our sails. That was a nice one AND a new excuse! The water was so clear on the wreck we fished today, that we could plainly see every small detail of it 55-60 feet below. Our big mistake was not picking up some jellyballs on the way out because there were 1000s of Spadefish around from 3-10 lbs. We did not resort to special Spadefish tactics. On the way home, we found 3 Cobia. One large one was not interested, the medium sized one was interested but he was lucky, the smallest one wasn't worth the effort. Total Catch for the Day: 4 Bluefish up to 11 lbs, 2 Amberjacks up to 40 lbs, 15 Black Sea Bass up to 3 lbs, 1 At Sharpnose Shark