5/28 – It was a nasty day. 80 degrees, muggy with a sloppy wind of SW 15. By the time we came in it was blowing out of the North 20, the temp was 65 and it was raining. I had the day off and, my wife, Katie wanted to catch a cobia (you know – the most boring fishing imaginable). She’s spent the last 4 months researching cobia for an academic institution and she was tired of reading about them and wanted to box and grill one. I’ve been so busy this spring that it’s been impossible for us to go fishing – it was a really nice feeling to finally get my wife out on the water.

Welp, Scott, Katie and I had a lot of action. The pogies weren’t in the water long – we had some great GIANT stingray action (scott fought a beast for over 30 minutes! – YUCK), several big blues, lost a mackerel on the balloon rig AND caught a *CITATION* 6.5lb Spanish Mackerel. We lost what we think was a cobia – and then, Katie got her fish. The fish took the bait, hauled A$$ and jumped completely out of the water shaking its head. I thought it was a bluefish – until we got it to the gaff. We left soon after that as it was raining and cold. The best story is dinner – AWESOME JOB KATIE! I have heard so many reports of cobia lately but havent seen a picture – so here you go!

*CITATION* 6.5lb Spanish – katie says i need to shave and get a haircut. After this picture, I agree.

5/25 – What an incredible day!! Neil and Missy were in town and Neil is a rabid fly fishermen (with the skills to back it all up) and wanted some ocean action the fly. Our first few stops didnt show us much but with the seas calming we headed off the beach a ways and found the motherload…of hungry AJs.

They’ve been around for a while BUT menhaden have been so scarce that I have been unable to tease them to the fly, etc. Today I had a few shad and found the AJs very willing. We started off trying to draw them to the pogies – which was a problem because they were eating the baits too fast. Missy got some very good pullage though and landed her first jack! After that, I decided to change tactics and do some chumming…and it was game on. Not only did we have the boat surrounded with AJs and spadefish we had other bigger fish deep in the slick – Missy’s 20lb albacore was one of them. Neil had jacks on the mind though – and we had them all over the poppers (fly and spin). It was hard work though and after pulling the hooks and breaking them off on the 12 weight – Neil was exhausted. We simply could not get the heat on them hard enough to keep them out of the wreck – had they been smaller than 30-40lbs or i had a 14 weight, it would have been different. He did take some breaks and we WAILED on them on the topwater poppers – incredible strikes.

Neil and Missy are incredible anglers – you’re welcome on my boat any time. Good luck with the wedding this October – i hope to fish with y’all again soon!

[b]AJ ON THE FLY![/b]

5/26 – Despite the awesome opportunities for fly fishing in the ocean, Tom wanted to do some reds on the fly. It was slick calm and the conditions were perfect – Tom made the right decision though. We found a ton of fish in the clear backwaters. We chased several schools around that numbered between 20 and 50+ fish. In a few hours, Tom had about 6 or 7 bites (we had some bad luck with some hook-sets!) sight casting to fish and landed this pretty (and very fat – would have loved to have him for a tourney) 26″ fish.

5/15 – I had the Brubaker bachelor party crew for a few hours this morning – but the calm seas and fair conditions gave way, in mere minutes, to NE 20-25 knots and rain. It flat out sucked. We did manage some good fishing in the time we had – we had several nice big blues on, a couple of king hits and the groom-to-be landed this nice blue. We also hit the beach and found a great bite on nice 17-20″ spanish and boxed a bunch before calling it quits. Sorry – not many pics due to the rain!

5/23 – I had good client Wright on this morning, minus a few of his crew members – and we decided to go wail on some kings. We found them and we wailed – it was HOT action, double and triple headers and we put a limit in the box about as fast as we could get lines out – we did it all on light spinning tackle. We also pulled a big blue out of the bunch. After that we did a bit of bottom fishing and caught an assortment of blacksea bass, nice triggerfish and pulled off several flatties before calling it quits. I took 3 of the kings and smoked them over hickory for Wright – they came out awesome. Always great to have you Wright!

5/21 & 5/22 – I had a couple more of my regulars today – Dave and Sue. They, like many of my other regulars – they know when to be here! You cannot go wrong with late may and early june!!! They like to cast and we always seem to find the fish together. Our first morning brought us great spanish action near the beach and we caught and released a good number of fish. After that we found even better big spanish and king mackerel off the beach – all on light spinning gear and jigs. We had them hammering our jigs right under the boat and we were watching them hit our lures like lightening bolts – it was so exciting!

The 2nd day we found fish breaking on the surface and dave had a king obliterate his jig on the first cast – right on the surface. One of the coolest strikes I have ever seen. We had great king action both days and also managed a big blue and some very good bottomfishing – seabass, several nice triggerfish, a TON of small grouper in the 15-23″ range and a few flounder. Not bad for less than 60 foot of water!!!

Seriously – some of the best king fishing you can ever hope to experience. PERIOD. You dont want to miss it.