Today I fished with Art and his sister Jean – who was in town for a few days from Alaska. We had a GREAT time together, and like always, it wasn’t just about the fishing but the company and sharing our thoughts on our favorite sport.
Art started off the day hooking a MONSTER stingray, on a bucktail, while casting to a pod of menhaden on the beach – we even almost managed to get the big headache to the boat! Instead of soaking bait and running the beach and the tidelines, we decided to hit the wrecks and live-bottoms and do a variety of stuff and hope that we run into a cobia during this time – just like I had the previous couple of days.
We found the jacks hungry and very willing to hit the popper – and Jean CRUSHED them. She just had the luck today, not only in getting the strikes – but hooking fish of the right size and landing them before they could break us off. Everything just came together for her.
Jean is a very interesting lady – her husband and her gill netted for sockeye salmon for years in Alaska. What is so amazing to me is how professional and conservation-minded the alaskan commercial fishermen are….and how different they are then from the North Carolina commercial fishermen. From the stories I hear from Jean, and other commercial fishermen from other areas, for an NC fishermen to compare themselves to a salmon netter of a crab fishermen is LAUGHABLE. In other areas of the country, Alaska in particular, the fishermen have to fish in ways to minimize by-catch and they do it instead of always trying to circumvent the law. The practices allowed in North Carolina are simply laughed at – because what the state of North Carolina allows really is just that – a JOKE.
We broke up the day by looking for a few flounder – and we did manage a nice keeper along with a few nice triggerfish. Art would end the day with a bang though.
Right as I was about to the pull the lines – a cobe showed up behind the boat and annilated a menhaden we tossed him. It went deep, came up – made a long run and came out of the water shaking it’s head like a largemouth bass. Thirty minutes later, Art finally had a his Cobia – it was a 45lb fish. Not a giant but “good eating sized.” 🙂
Great fishin’ with y’all!
