Back at Work and it Sucks

Gotta do this job up here at Hatteras for 7 days. Hopefully I can land a couple of these when I get home..... Red Drum and King Mackerel should both be going off when I am back in Beaufort and I am availiable on:

Sept 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10

Call me on 252-241-8350 if interested

Aug 26 Fly Fishing the Mung Hole Circuit

I wanted Jennifer to see the Master Fisherman in my new element so I forced her to accompany me out to the "Triple Top Secret Mung Hole".... This Pond is a recent (May of 2012) discovery and a virgin fishery. Unfortunately, Korey and I have now caught every fish in there twice at least. They are wising up. The early days of a fish on 20 straight casts are over..... So anyway, I got her out there, armed with a camera and I immediately bumbled my way down the wrong shoreline, catching nothing. Wooooing her with my WORLD CLASS casting abilities. Beautifully rolled out 25 foot works of art! A RIVER definitely RAN THROUGH IT!!!   Huh? Fly casters understand, okay...... So finally I catch a Largemouth Bass and here she comes faithfully with the camera. Carefully positioning her with the camera for the best angle..... I planted her firmly in a giant mound of FIREANTS. With skimpy shoes and no socks. So, if I'm going to post a picture of her as my fans are demanding, I better hurry. Because I really love her and she might not put up with this kind of thing much longer. But she got the picture, and I got yet another Mung Hole Grand Slam on Fly. It means alot....... To No One......  Oh well, I love you Jennifer, by the time you read this, I'll be at Hatteras. Me and Billy will be stoking the fires to keep the Ferry running. I will and do miss you ALOT... You know my hat was crooked? Is that why you were laughing despite the Fireants? Very Funny. Total Catch for this Trip: 3 Largemouth Bass, 1 Bluegill and 1 Pumpkinseed

Aug 26 Red Drum Fishing

First of all, I made the journey over to Oriental and got there early enough to fish for an hour off the Rocks at Dawson's Creek. Very interesting. If I lived over there, you would find me on those rocks quite often. Good casting for Red Drum and Flounder! Secondly, we got hammered by rain. Crazy how cold getting drenched by rain can be on a hot August afternoon. As  the skys cleared, I released a Red Drum that I figured was a Stingray right up to the last second. Then Laden released the smallest Drum of the "official trip". Obviously (unfortunately) her "small" Drum was much larger than my "large" Drum off the Rocks. Okay? Didn't want to mislead any one..... After a lull in the action, Capt Tuggy netted 65,000 Menhaden and we left a beautiful ledge off South River and made the run east about 8 miles to the "SPOT". Once we got there and joined the Red Drum Elite Fleet, we found the fishing to be uninspiring, but steady. Our bites came in doubles and they were spaced out every 20-30 minutes. We picked away at them until we were the last boat there and we got a decent number. A few 40 lb Red Drum, while the others were smaller. Makes me miss the good ole days at Cedar Island back in 97, 98, 99, 00, 01, etc etc etc. Red Drum that were consistently in the 60 lb range. My largest at 83 lbs, 59x36 if my memory is correct. Twenty fish nights were the normal, good nights were 40-50 legit, counting every fish.... Ah, maybe next time off...... Total Catch for the Night(and Day): 14 Red Drum up to 42 lbs, 4 Southern Flounder up to 15" and a 15 lb Cownose Ray

Aug 24 The Weatherman trying to Kill Us.....

The Weatherman said 5-10 kt North winds through Monday afternoon. Light seas. That's as good as it gets when the Friday forecast is beautiful through Monday night...... So we loaded up with live Menhaden and hit the Inlet. Damn, where is that wind coming from? Must be off that dark cloud. Local wind burst due to a pressure gradient! WRONG..... It blew 15-18 kts from the NE all damn day. We all know that the East or Northeast wind kills the fishing. Not the light stuff, but 15-18, forget it! So we fished hard, we traveled far, we got beat to death. And the final tally was........ A Grouper. A Grunt. A Shark. A Black Sea Bass. Two Bluefish. And a very unusual Red Drum..... Making matters worse, I lost a large African Pompano after a fairly long struggle. Hooks pulled, and I and him solid on a big 7/0 J hook and 125# leader. Should've been DEAD ASS. Nope, not on this day! The highlight of the day was a 40 lb+ Barracuda making sashimi out of my Jumbo Sea Bass, but that was surpassed when I cleaned George's fat 27", 10 lb Red Drum..... In the Drums belly were 6 entire 4" Gulp White Shrimp, a 5" Lime Green Gulp Jerk Shad, and 7 other significantly large parts of other Gulp Baits. Unbelievable. Total Catch for the Day: 10 lb Red Drum, 8 lb Gag Grouper, 2 lb White Grunt, 1 Black Sea Bass, 2 Bluefish and a 7 lb Sharpnose Shark

Aug 23 Red Drum on Every Cast

First day home after 9 long days of shoveling coal at Hatteras.... Its been NO WIND through the period, but lots of rain however... Still, I shudder at the thought of all the King Mackerel, Red Drum, and Flounder that I missed out on. Anyway, I had a small window of op today and made a solo trip and hit the motherlode! A Red Drum on my first 14 casts. Then 3 quick Flounders. Interesting because 2 of them were Gulf Flounders including a 20" mini-mat. After that came a short lull while Stacy pedaled Steaks and Reels! Finally, as I was about to leave cane another Red Drum flurry with 3 more releases. Mid August is here and Taylor's Creek is alive! Total Catch for the Day: 17 Red Drum from 14" to 28", 2 Gulf Flounder at 15" and 20" and 1 Southern Flounder at 14"  Sorry No Camera with me and it was rainy the next day when I cleaned my fish!

Aug 13 King Mackerel Fishing

Chris and his crew fished today instead of last night for Red Drum. I hope we made the right decision. We decided to go King Mackerel fishing because I felt we could get a fair number of bites if we really tried.. We headed out about 15 miles South of Beaufort Inlet and the first bait in the water got eaten by a................. Shark! Unfortunately, there would be many more Shark bites in the morning. We did manage to get 3 King Mackerel bite though, and luckily, we caught all three. Everyone in the crew caught one and Chris had the biggest at 25 lbs. Paul and Ben had 14 lb twins. Before we left the area, we dropped bottom rigs down and caught lots more.......    Sharks! Paul lucked into a 25" Gag Grouper though.. After that we ran over to the Cape Lookout Shoals and found......     Sharks! We never stopped however, and finally, on the westside of the Shoals we found acres of breaking Spanish Mackerel and stopped and casted metal lures to them, catching at least 10 Spanish Mackerel up to 2 lbs... Great Day! Total Catch for the Day: 3 King Mackerel up to 25 lbs, 10 Spanish Mackerel up to 2 lbs, 1 Gag Grouper at 24" and 12 Sharpnose Sharks up to 8 lbs 

Aug 9 The Big Ones Got Away

Jeff and his boys joined me today for their yearly fishing trip after yesterdays rain out. The morning brought us a special rare treat! In front of Harker's Island as we searched for Menhaden we were shadowed by a small pod of Bottlenosed Dolphins. After a short search, we found the flips and on our second toss of the cast net we caught about 8 dozen. Thirty went in the livewell. Then we noticed the Dolphins circling the boat very animated. They were ready for a free handout. We "fed" the Dolphins all the leftover Menhaden. It was so spectacular and incredible, we also fed them 2 bags of Menhaden that I had caught the day before. It was an unforgettable moment for the boys (and Jeff and I)... Off to the fishing. This morning I was confronted with the everyday east vs west dilemma. I choose West and at the end of the day I wasn't happy with the results, but thats how it goes. Our biggest problem was not getting bites, but losing big fish. Some days are just not great "take a kid fishing" days.This was one of these days. Right off the bat, we lost a monster bite on the bottom. I hooked the fish on 50# heavy rod and it immediately ran to the east against heavy drag back towards the wreck. Passing off the rod to Jeff, I checked the gps and figured we had plenty of room. I was wrong. This was ONE BIG FISH! He made it to the wreck and..,... PING. Gone. That was the theme of the day. Later, we caught an Amberjack, a bunch of Sharks, Black Sea Bass, and other bottom fish. The day ended with us fishing at a different Wreck and we were slow trolling around the perimeter when we got a smoking strike from a BIG FISH that ate a live Menhaden 120 feet off the stern was 300 feet off the port side of the boat within seconds. A minute later it was over, as Jeff stood there with a screaming reel and a bowed rod, suddenly the rod tip popped up and the drag was silenced. The Fish Was Gone! So we lost the two best bites of the year so far, plus we lost at least 2 other nice fish on the bottom as well..... One of THOSE days. Total Catch for the Day: 18 lb Amberjack, 7 Sharpnose Sharks up to 8 lbs, 1 Blacknose Shark, 3 Tomtate, 10 Black Sea Bass, 1 Rock Sea Bass, 1 Scup and 2 Pinfish

Citation Spanish Mackerels & RAIN RAIN RAIN

Lots of rain this morning. In a little clearing at 9am, I met my party and we decided with lots more rain upon us, to call it off until tomorrow. Good Move? We'll see tomorrow. I went on out and caught 6 dozen Menhaden just to see if they were in the same place. Obviously so.... Then my girlfriend called and said she'd like to go for a ride. I said, "Have you noticed the weather?" She said she'd love to go in the rain... So we did, we went swimming for hours as the rain beat down on us. Then the skys cleared and we went fishing. Bites were few, but they were quality. Jennifer got 2 Spanish Mackerel at 6 lbs each. I caught 2 Southern Flounder. One was 20" and the other was 16". I also caught a Red Drum. We caught some garbage as well. We were waterlogged but it was a good time. I hope I made the right move with my clients. We will know by tomorrow! Total Catch for the Day: 2 Spanish Mackerel at 6 lbs each, 2 Southern Flounder up to 3 lbs, 1 Red Drum, 1 Blacknose Shark, 1 Pinfish, 1 Remora, and 1 Bluefish

Is Capt Marty a Jerk?

A couple weeks ago I got an email from a complete stranger that was simply asking "where to go throw a cast net to catch a few shrimp"..

Captain Marty,

Thank you for the advice! We scored on our 1^st try!! We didn’t catch big ones, but we did learn the difference between a shrimp and finger mullet jumping across the surface! We caught our limit of 100, and that paired with a nice flounder my son managed to catch while we were searching (20”flounder) made a nice supper that night for my and me! I’ve attached a picture. We went to Oyster Creek just past Davis! We made a day of it… we traveled all the way to Thorofare Bay. We were not sure about the boat ramp there at the bridge so we turned around and went back to Oyster Creek! Have you ever used that boat ramp? It looked very shallow, and I do not have a 4wd truck, so I didn’t want to risk getting stuck. Anyway, the area down east is nice! I like that laid back atmosphere! I believe we will be traveling that way a little more often now!

Are there any public boat ramps on Cedar Island? We are thinking of doing a day trip up there one day for a little fishing and pleasure boating.

Anyway, thanks again!

John W.

This is the follow-up email that I just got. Makes me feel really good and it sounds like John and his little boy have found a fun and productive new hobby and a great new way to build a strong relationship. Unfortunately, now I'll have to brace myself for the avalanche of criticism that I'll get for "giving out secrets".  Give me a break...... I help people out ALL THE TIME, yet I hear constant crap about what a jerk I am on the water. To those people, all I got to say is Good Luck and Keep your Distance, that way I can't see what you're NOT catching. Empty fish boxes bring out the worst in my fishing enemys, combatants, and competitors, especially the "yellow bouy  fleet". I'm certainly not afraid to post up my daily fishing reports (with pictures).