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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!

May 26 30" Cobia and 400 lb. Spotted Eagle Ray

I finally found a few Cobias today! I found a Huge Spotted Eagle Ray cruising along with 5 Cobias at Cape Lookout. I made 2 amazing casts! The first cast was amazing because a 30" Cobia out raced 4 others to my bucktail and 2 of them were close to 50 pounds. After hooking up the little Cobia, my second cast hooked up the Ray! Amazing. 15 Jumps and a half mile later I broke him off. It must've been a funny sight. Me dragging the little Cobia behind the boat, chasing a huge Ray, and still casting another Rod towards the leaping Ray. At least it was exciting!

May 25 Amberjack not Cobia

No excuses today, it was beautiful weather. Bright sun and light winds. Perfect sight casting conditions! And we rode 110 miles and found Amberjacks, Spadefish, and a Mother Right Whale and her calf. No Cobias. I guess the highlight was the 60 foot Right Whale with her 20 foot Baby that was swimming a mile off Atlantic Beach. Other than the Whale, I guess the schools of 10-20 pound Amberjacks that chased our top water plugs around a pair of nearshore wrecks was pretty cool. We also caught keeper sized Black Sea Bass, Vermillion Snapper, Gag Grouper, Tomtate, and a bunch of Cigar Minnows on the sabiki rig! However, John and Hoyle came to catch a Cobia and they went home disappointed. I'm sorry guys! Once again, it looks like the motherlode hit Hatteras first this year.....

May 24 Rain, Wind, and Bluefish

Today was like 2 different days. The morning was nasty blowing rain. Real ugly. This afternoon it turned off pretty, but the fishing close to the beach was not good. Still no bait around and hardly any Cobias in Carteret County waters. Looks like Hatteras got them this year...But we still tried and Scott Tart and his 3 sons joined me for a tough half day of fishing. When it was over we had caught Bluefish from 8-10 pounds, Sharpnose Sharks, a Bullnose Ray, and a Southern Stingray.

May 23 No Cobias Today

A year ago today, we caught a 92 pound Cobia and a pile of Big Bluefish. Bait was everywhere. Today there is little or no bait and as far as I know there were ZERO Cobias caught from Beaufort Inlet to the Shoals at Cape Lookout. I don't claim to know everything, so I'd guess that somebody caught a Cobia somewhere, but it wasn't by anyone near me or anyone in my "Cobia Network". ***Update--I heard of 2 Cobia caught late in the afternoon in BFT Inlet*** Anyway, Matt Keane and his Dad and Brother fished with me this morning on a half day trip and I think everybody caught a Sharpnose Shark, Matt caught a 15 lb. Bullnose Ray and a nice Bluefish. We had a couple of Choppers chase the top water baits unsuccessfully. Finally we sight casted live crabs to varoius sized Sheepsheads, up to 10 pounds, in way too much wind and current. Once again, we were unsuccessful. Too much wind, clouds, and chop vs. groundswell for Ideal Cobia Sight Casting Conditions. Tough fishing!!

The 2008 Top Water Charter Boat

Here's a couple pictures of my Boat. Now let's get it nice and Fishy!

May 21 Good Spanish Mackerel Casting Action

Chris and I went out looking for bait this morning but the Ocean was too tempting so we went fishing instead. Not sure what we were looking for, but Spanish Mackerel was what we found. In a cool hour-long casting session we caught around 15 Spanish Mackerel. Funny thing was, they looked small while in the air, but the ones that bit our metal jigs were nice ones, all over a pound. Chris also caught a 14" Gray Trout. Later we used the several of the Mackerel for Cobia bait and caught 7 Sandbar Sharks up to 25 lb.s and 2 Sharpnose (yuck!) Sharks. After putting Chris on the Mystery, I went up to Cape Lookout and caught 5 Bluefish, including 3 Choppers in the 8-10 pound class on top water plugs. The Bait prognosis for tommorrow and beyond doesn't look good. I never saw a Menhaden flip all day long. Hope for Sight Casting Weather!

May 20 This Wind is Killing Me!

Blow, Blow, Blow! The wind will not give up and it is killing this Cobia Season. From all reports there are a few Cobia around although the bait situation is terrible. Tommorrow I will be out looking for a Cobia, a Bluefish, and schools of Menhaden! Hopefully we will have some Sight Fishing Weather very soon!

May 15 Double Grand Slam---Tarpon, Bonefish, Permit

Spent the day with Capt. Pat Bracher, http://www.fishovertime.com/ and had another great day of Flats Fishing. This was the 5th day that I've fished with Pat since 2000 and it was my 3rd Double Grand Slam with him. Amazing.

I started the day with 4 Tarpon (130, 120, 120, 75). Then I caught 2 Bonefish (4, 8). Finally, I caught 2 Permit (10, 32) including my new career best. I also caught a Crevalle Jack (10) and pulled on a Goliath Grouper on the Permit rod (12 lb. test). After much give and take the Giant Grouper (100+) made under his ledge and forced me to break him off.

May 14 Crevalle Jacks and Sharks

On May 14th our fishing was made difficult by 20 knot winds and a Yamaha Jet Ski commercial shoot. We did manage to catch a few Crevalle Jacks to use for Shark bait and we managed to hook several large Bull and Lemon Sharks that tried to pull our 13 foot Boston Whaler into open water where it was a little too rough for us. I had to break off all our Sharks to avoid the Divorce Lawyers that are on Meredith's speed dial.

Later in the day I tried to catch more Barracudas down at Bahia Honda but I couldn't reach my favorite spot because the tide was too high. We did see lots of Tarpon rolling near the Old Bridge though. Things are looking good for tommorrow!

May 13 Cobias and Barracudas

My first 2 days of Fishing in the Florida were interesting enough. May 13 was a beautiful day and Barracuda and Tarpon were pretty easy to find in the water off Duck Key. I wasn't really prepared for the Tarpon, but Meredith and I each caught a nice Barracuda in the 15 pound range. Later in the afternoon we went snorkeling near Grassy Key and I found myself surrounded by close to 20 Cobias! I'd guess 4 were in the 70-80 pound class. I got lots of underwater pictures waiting to be developed, but I did snap a few after I dried off with the Digital Camera.

May 9 Going to the Florida Keys

My Boat is finished, the weather is looking better, the Cobia Season is upon us, and...........I'm going to Florida for a week! Bad Timing? I'll be chasing Tarpon, Bonefish, Permit, Barracuda, and Shark until May 17th. My Cobia Games begin for sure on Sunday May 18th.

Hopefully, next week, I'll post plenty of pictures similar to these:

May 7 GOOD News--BAD News

Good News. The Boat is ready and I fished MY BOAT today. Finally. More Good News. The Atlantic Bonito were biting very good this morning. I caught 8 and killed 4, up to 22" or 4 pounds. More Good News. I found a nice school of Red Drum on the Shoals and caught 4 and they were all over 33" or around 10-12 pounds. More Good News. The Cobia are here/near. I found 2 today, one around 40 pounds and one pushing 70 pounds. The Bad News. I didn't catch either of the ones I found. Finally, I will be gone to Florida from May 11 through 17 and will possibly miss some good Cobia Fishing. Oh well, last year it really caught fire around May 20th. One final bit of Bad News. I left my camera in the Truck so all i got is dead Bonito pictures!

April 22 Rain, Wind, No Boat, and No Fishing

This Spring has been very odd for me. No Boat and No fishing. The weather has been consistently HORRIBLE and having my Boat out of commission hasn't really been a big deal. I assume that this weather situation will be changing shortly and I hope to have my Boat ready for the weekend. I'm hoping anyway. By the way, I did manage to catch a boat ride to Ocracoke Inlet one afternoon last week and caught several Red Drum with my largest stretching out to 39". Also, I'm getting alot of questions about Cobia Fishing and my open days but nobody has made any commitments yet. I expect to lose quite a few open days pretty soon so anyone who is interested had better make up there minds pretty soon. Just a thought!

April 11 Progress Report

Since I brought my boat home on March 28 the weather has been terrible! It finally broke today and we were able to make some serious headway on finishing the rigging job on my tower and pretty much rewiring the entire boat. The next time I get home from Hatteras, on April 22, it will definitely be time to "GO!" All things considered, I don't think I've missed a whole lot of great action by sitting out the past 2 months.

March 28 Progress Report

My boat is back in Beaufort and it looks great! The new T Top, Tower, and Leaning Post makes the 20 year old Boat look brand new. Tommorrow she's off to Jarrett Bay Industrial Park for the Rigging Job. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly and I'll be ready to go Bonito, Chopper Bluefish, and Jumbo Red Drum Fishing as planned, on April 8!

March 26 Progress Report

My New T-Top, Tower, and Leaning Post will be ready in 2 days. After that comes the rigging job. Then she'll be ready to fish. I can't wait! Hopefully it will put more Cobias on the Dock this May and June. It will allow much easier "fish finding" on the Shoals and just outside the surf. It will also allow a great platform for killer fishing pictures.

The picture above is a 92 pound Cobia decked by the Trouser last May. It is a new record aboard my Boat. Hopefully, it will fall this year to a 100+ pounder.

I have fished briefly for Shad on 3 occasions since my last report and haven't had any luck. I can't declare it over. But it might be for me!

March 12 Progress Report and Catfish

The Top Water Boat made the trip to Farmville today to Modlin's for the New T-Top, Tower, and Leaning Post. There was some really great looking stuff in that shop. Anybody looking for that type of work really needs to go meet Keith and see his products. I can't wait to see my boat when she's finished!

On the way home I hit the Tar River at Greenville and it was pretty much unfishable. The River was running very high and hard and muddy. Then I checked out the Neuse at Cowpen and it was a little better. In 90 minutes, I caught 2 Hickory Shad. One went under the knive for bait and the other swam away. I baited up the old cat rod 3 times and finally caught a 5 lb. Channel Cat.

March 2 Hickory Shad

Beautiful day on the Neuse. Marc Rouse and I fished from Cowpen Landing to Pitch Kettle and had a pretty good day. Together, we caught 30+ Hickory Shad. I caught one that went 17" (fork length) and weighed 2 lb.s 7 oz. We caught them all in the Neuse except my big one actually came from Pitch Kettle Creek. We had several that were close to 2 pounds. All fish came off white grubs and silver spoons. We tried for a Catfish but found no takers. We did find a Bald Eagle that let us pretty close to him.

Feb 29 Hickory Shad Fishing

I couldn't stand it any longer, I had to go fishing. So I drove to the Neuse and spent 90 minutes casting. It wasn't great, but I had 7 strikes and captured 6 Hickory Shad, including one that measured out at 16" (total length), plenty big enough for a NC Freshwater Fishing Citation. That's a decent Hickory Shad. Grugs on 1/16 oz leadheads outfished the spoons today. Hopefully, Shad fishing will be as good as it was in 2006 when I had several 100+ fish days during mid-March. Today was a nice start!

Progress Reports

The Boat is coming along slowly. Hopefully, she will meet her deadline for a mid-April meeting with a 12 pound Bluefish and a 40 pound Red Drum! My new T-Top and Tower will be built by Modlin's Aluminum in Farmville, NC. I can't wait to spot that first Cobia, but I think a school of Giant Red Drum will be coming my way first!

My website is getting some attention also. New pictures and updated text. My NC Citation count is getting brought up to date. Right now my count is around 345, not including the NC Freshwater Angler Recognition Program Citations or the one's my clients have accumulated in the past 5 years.

Unfortunately, when the changes are made to the website, my new Rates will go into affect. As of today, my website still shows Rates for 2005, so I'm simply doing what everybody else has already done a couple of times. All I can say is that I believe that I'm still a bargain. Just like my first summer doing this, most of my Half Day clients still have to ask me to carry them to shore!

There is a possibility that I'll get a Shad Fishing trip in this weekend. Hopefully I'll post a real fishing report soon!

Let the Hard Work Begin....

On Valentine's Day, we glassed my new center console. Lots of sanding and painting still ahead. Today I started taking my boat apart. What a chore. Much harder than I anticipated. Once I get the old console and t-top out, I will put in the new console and get ready for my new t-top and tower. Unfortunately, no more fishing for awhile! Hopefully in a month or so, everybody will be very impressed. If everything goes as planned, she'll be ready to roll by early April!

Feb 3 Finally a Fish Story

We started out looking for Trout and Drum this morning and despite the great weather, we didn't find any fish. So we started riding! Around the Shoals at Cape Lookout and up the beach towards Drum Inlet we went. After about 5 miles, and since we hadn't seen any sign of life, I turned to the east and decided to go check out a wreck in 85 feet of water. So what if all we had was the Trout rods! We arrived at 12 noon and by 1:30 we had 34 Black Sea Bass between 2-3 pounds, 18 Bluefish from 1-2 pounds, 3 Summer Flounder around 2 pounds each, and app. 10 Spiny Dog Sharks, plus quite a few Sea Bass and Bluefish releases. Every fish was caught by jigging metal on 8 and 10 lb. test on the trout tackle. Nice way to save the day!

Lack of Fishing

Sorry for the lack of fishing Reports recently. I have had some Major Medical Issues in my family recently that has drawn my attention away from the water. Add to that the typical winter weather we've been experiencing and my Job relocations from Cape Hatteras to Knott's Island to Ocracoke and I've been 6 weeks without fishing! That is by far my longest stretch with NO fishing since 1985! Hopefully, I will be able to get out and give it a try this weekend (Feb 2nd or 3rd). Next week, I will begin the process of taking my boat apart and hopefully making some huge improvements. I expect to be up and running again by April 1st.

In the near future I will be posting my open dates for my Spring of 2008 Bonito, Albacore, and Bluefish fishing. I also anticipate fishing out of Ocracoke this Spring for Giant Red Drum. This can be a great sight casting fishery. In the meantime, I will be fishing for Hickory Shad in the Neuse River.

On final thing, I will be posting Rate increases on my website in the near future. I have not increased my rates in quite some time and the higher fuel costs and larger boat finally caught up with me. After looking at some other guys rates, I still consider myself quite a bargain and anyone who has fished with me in the past knows that my "half days" are extremely long. Most of my clients actually have to tell me to take them in!

Hopefully I will get a real fishing report up very soon!

More 2007 Pictures