8/22 – This morning I had the pleasure of fishing with Bud and his two friends. The morning started out slow – ugly clouds and a forcasted wind of 15-20 knots made me go to a different location than i would have liked. We caught about 6 small rat reds on spinnerbaits and had a few more roll on a top-dog, and after a couple hours, i realized the weathermen had messed us up again – the wind was very light and due west…and not building. So we picked up and hauled to one of my favorite spots – and it was on.
I started off cast netting shrimp – I found a MASSIVE school of big 20-30 counters and filled a cooler with out limit in no time. I probably put 7-8lbs inthe boat in less than 20 minutes. When we came up on the balls of shrimp – it was like the water was on fire. 100+ shrimp a cast.
After that, we found the fish – the first one was a 3lb black drum on a spinner-bait (that’s pretty odd!). Then Bud found the first slot red – a pretty 25″ fish. Then it was on – after a couple more slot fish, we found a big school and had a triple header of 26-28″ pigs in no time. After landing all three, we went to work picking away at more slot fish as the tide fell and the rain came down on our heads. However, Bud was on fire – he ended up closing out with the two largest drum I’ve had clients land this year in the marsh – a 12lb 33″ fish and a 13lb 24″ fish. Both came out of less than 18 inches of water on redfish magic spinnerbaits (white or chartreuse has been the ticket lately – leave the dark colored ones at home).
8/21 – I took out Katie for a couple of hours this evening – she was in Cape Cod all summer and seriously needed a North Carolina Red Drum fix. …well, she got her redfish fix quickly. I made the run to one of my productive areas, and in 90 minutes we boated 8 slot fish all on redfish magic spinnerbaits (white and electric chicken colored). She even got 2 3-spotters!
8/20- BlOW-OUT.
8/19 – Today I again had my two favorite clients – Wright and Wright. We were going to start of the morning by charging offshore but got distracted by the awesome spanish bite. Again, we found huge bait-balls being busted by equally large schools of spanish working some tide-lines. While the fish bit readily, they were pickier than days prior and it was challenging to get a hit on a stingsilver but when we could get close to the schools – speck-rigs were automatic. We ended up with 25 of so spaniards before me made the journey offshore.
The ocean was pretty darn slick by this time and we immeadiatly put two nice dolphin inthe box (6-7lbs) before the bite went dead. We caught a stinky and had several short strikes before everything went dead for about 3 hours…we picked up another decent cow dolphin. At that point I found a good ball of bait over some structure and jigged up a few to put out on king tackle. After about ten minutes of trolling the starboard rod went “bounce bounce bounce bounce, etc. etc. etc.” I instantly knew what the fish was and few the line back for probably 20 seconds as the fish hit it a couple more times before eating it and SMOKING the reel. It was then that the SAILFISH raised its head one out of the water, ran back towards the boat, and just before it was about to jump…the line snapped. The last 18 inches of the 20lb mono looked as if they had been rubbed by a piece of sandpaper…but that’s just the way it is with king tackle. It’s really hard to land those guys with a short wire leader on such light tackle. We’ll get her next time boys!!!! 😀 As always, awesome to have you aboard.
8/18 – This moring I had the pleasure of fishing with Dave, an english professor from State, and his daught Tally – a fellow Dukie. Man – I don’t think I ever had so much in common with a charter that randomly picked up one of my cards and we had such a great morning (aside from the good fishing)! I found the spanish were we left them and we trolled them up readily on light spinning rods – releasing most of them and keeping only 4 for dinner. As the spanish bite tapered off and I had a good number of pretty finger mullets onboard we decided to try the hot flounder bite – and it was hot. We fished for 10 minutes and Dave landed a citation 5lb southern flounder – and we ended the day on that note. Can’t wait to have you guys back!
8/16 – This morning I fished with Devin of Canada and his dad, Jerry of Atlantic. They’d be catching red drum down east all week and wanted to do some nearshore ocean fishing for a change. As the east wind made the ocean a bit rough and we wanted to stay close, we decided to do the spanish mackerel thing as they had been biting well and we found them thick. Huge, acre large schools busting tight baitbails of good sized bay anchovies. The spanish were starving and ate everything we threw at them…and we hit them all morning long, keeping around 30. Most fish were in the 16-18″ range. Awesome day guys!
8/15 – Day two with the Dawson party from Ohio. Today was our offshore day and we had high hopes. Well, we didn’t get a lot of strikes but the ones we got were quality. We landed a nice 10lb bull dolphin, lost one of the same size at boat, had a few decent dolphin stikes and had three great wahoo strikes (no bite-offs, just short strikes)…before we finally got a good ‘hoo on. She smacked the planer rod (two shorts came off the planer, another off a prop-wash bait) and blistered line and made two good runs before I brought her to the gaff. She went 45lbs – an awesome fish for 80 foot of water!!! The worst part is is that I left my camera in the skiff…but I’m hoping they’ll send me some photos soon to post.
