Finally, after a two week long cold front, I finally have been able to find the warm water and the Bonito. During the past week, when I’ve been able to get out, I’ve smoked them at a few of my secret spots – my in-depth analysis of their behavoir in the atlantic ocean has really paid-off. On all the below days – we were the only boat in the site (except for a couple of friends who I invited to follow me). Awesome!

[b]OPEN DAYS – VERY FEW LEFT – currently I have the 29th (sunday), , 30th, 1, 2nd, 10 & 11th. I also have only 1 day left for the Roanoke River – call for information![/b]
[b]4/23[/b] – Today I fished with Dave and Sue again – they’ve been in town the whole month and we finally got to slam the “Boniters” today. The ocean was a giant pane of glass – slick as far as you could see. Upon reaching my location, we found them busting sporadically – and we had a hook-up with a minute of arriving. After that, it was automatic until lunch time.

In the glassy conditions, we caught them all casting to busting fish and also blind casting topwater, stingsilvers zara-spooks and top-dogs. We had fish on all morning, and we spent most of the day fighting fish. Also in the mix were a gazzilion bluefish of which we probably landed 40 and spent most of hte time trying to avoid them.

Sue really got Dave and me – landing most of the fish.

[b]All in all, we boated 14 ([/b]kept 7) all around 5lbs and broke off and easily lost just as many – we also had countless strikes. I had them skying on a top-dog for a while – AWESOME FISHING!!! I even got to take a couple home (thanks guys!)!

I just got an email from them telling me how amazing they taste – and I sure enjoyed mine last night…and I’m about to put a few loins inthe smokehouse and eat some ceviche for lunch!

4/22 – Today I had the absolute pleasure of fishing with Jay and his son Craig. First of all, I have to say how great it was to have Craig on boar today – he is 13 and is an absolute fishing fool. He lives and breaths it – h reminds me a lot of myself when I was his age. The charter was Craig’s birthday present and I really felt the pressure to get him on the fish.

It was a tough morning though – the water was crystal clear but i wasn’t finding a lot of fish. We had 1 slot fish rush Craig’s spinner bait but he spooked before he took it. Soon after we found a small school of MASSIVE over-slot fish – we got a few casts at them but they weren’t very aggrassive and we unfortunately spooked them before we got a hook-up.

We did manage a couple of little guys – so craig finally got his first red (as did his dad, Jay)!! Then, after a long poling session in 12 inches of water – i saw a giant shadow moving towards the boat – at first i thought it was mullet…but it wasting…it was a giant school of 300+ slot reds sitting on a mud flat. 1 expert cast later – and Craig got his first slot fish! Tough day – but we ended it on a good note and Craig was extatic! I told him if he got a slot, he got to keep the lure – so he got himself another redfish magic to add to his box!

Thanks for sticking with me guys – i know you’ll back again in the future.

Bonito with the Wrights! These guys really have the Bonito fever and while we hoped to get out for them over 2 days – we were lucky enough to get out 1 day.The morning was calm but it built throughout the day – but was very comfortable in my 23′ deep-vee parker with its full gull-wing curtains.

The day started off with blues – lots and lots and lots of blues. So many blues (all 1-4lbs) that you could have filled the boat to the gunnel. They wanted to take a few home…and we put 10 in the box in less than 5 minutes. Disgusting.

There were so many blues we couldnt get away from them – so i went to the troll, a fast troll and we found the Boniters using the ole reliable – the deep-diver yo-zuri. They really troll well on my TIS70MHF st croix tidemasters – just enough backbone to handle the plug and yet they provide an awesome light tackle fight.

We found the Bonitos immeadiatly getting 2 doubles – and only getting 1 fish in. There were so many bluefish they were hitting the swivels (the tiny 30lb spro barrels) of my leaders and cutting off the (expensive!) plugs. We zeroed in on them and were getting hits every pass – the only problem was that as soon as we got off the the marks, the big 15lb+ false albacore were slamming the plugs…and it took us 30+ minutes to get a couple of them in as some of them completely spooled 360 penn slammers…and we had to chase them down. We still got out “

[b]nearshore tuna slams[/b]” though – which is quite hard to do! One of them was so tough that he completely destroyed a Penn 3000 ssg – the thing is in a heap on my work bench right now.

After we left the building seas, we went back in thge backwaters and found a couple of reds – and wright got a nice mid-slot fish right off the bat. What a day guys – always a pleasure and i can’t wait to see you again.

More Boniters with more of my favorite clients. Sean and Corbin came down from Baltimore – they were on spring break and were road trippin’ it. They’ve fished with me for the past 3 or 4 seasons, since they were 15? We’ve always had a blast – and this year was no exception. These guys are also fishin’ fools and live and breath the sport – they’re about tpo head off to higher education and may even enter my profession one day – and it makes me feel good that with such good young adults in this country, the future of the sport is in such good hands.

I had to mix things up a little bit, to begin with. With cold water on the beach, i took a gamble and it paid off. At first, we found 10 gazillion bluefish – they were blitzing the surface, huge shoals of them tearing up baitfish and all of them were 1-4lbs. They were so many they were destroying my tackle – bitig through 40lb leaders, htting swivels and even sawing through 40lb power-pro. It was amazing!

So I did what I knew I had to do – go to the troll. And within 3 minutes, a reel was screaming and sean put the first Bonito in the boat. Then we had a double, another single, a double. And dozens of bluefish. Then the albacore came in – and we were able to land 2 (sean and corbin each got one – both earning a tough “

[b]nearshore tuna slam[/b]”!). The albies were big and were destryoing my gear – taking us down to a few raps on the reels (almost 300 yds of line!). Man, they really fought hard, much harder than usual.

We found a good number of Bonito and lost a good number – many of them to bluefish hitting the swivels of my leaders. We did manage to find a few busting Bonito towards the end of the day – and we had a couple of swipes before t hey went down.

AWESOME day guys! (also – thanks for letting me keep a fish 😀 ) I can’t wait to have y’all back.