Topsail Angler's Fishing Blog

First Flounder

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

On Monday of this week I had the opportunity to fish with my good friend and missionary, John Shepherd.  He is staying in Surf City this week and hasn’t fished in the salty stuff much.  So we headed out in the morning before the wind got bad searching for some flounder. 

John lives in the foot hills of east Tenn. and enjoys bass and trout fishing, so he applied his techniques for catching small mouths with a C-rigged lizard to flounder fishing with Gulp! and quickly pulled 4 fish to the boat.  Two of them were nice keepers. We were fishing around the docks in the Surf City area from my boat.  The wind picked up and the bite shut down pretty quickly after that.

I filleted the flounder for John and fixed a crab/shrimp stuffing for the fish so John could cook it later for his wife.  I got word from John last night that “the flounder was like a rocket,  out of this world”! 

Gulf Stream Trip

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Yesterday I finally got to make a fishing trip to the Gulf Stream this month.  The weather kept me penned down for a few weeks and then I had some other issues that kept me off the water, so I was ready to do some catching yesterday.  My friend Scott Erickson, owner of Century 21 Action Realty in Surf City was kind enough to invite me to go with him and his buddy Tanner aboard his boat the “Reel Dream”. 

We met at the high rise bridge boat ramp on Topsail Island before dawn and headed out of New River inlet, when the sun came up over the horizon we were already six miles offshore.  The seas were flat so we made great time.  We arrived at Gulf Stream to find beautiful blue water.  Man this plan was coming together nicely. We put out a five rod spread and started trolling the “break” looking to catch a hoo or two with maybe a nice tuna or dolphin in the mix.

We had two solid hook-ups but both came unbuttoned after a minute or so.  It got the blood boiling but that was it.  No more bites on the troll.  So we switched over to bottom fishing and proceeded to fill the box with tasty bottom critters.  Red Grouper, silver snappers, b-liners, grunts, jolt head porgies and trigger fish.  I caught one trigger that weighed in at 4.8 pounds, just shy of a citation but tasty just the same.  We hit a few grouper holes on the way back in before arriving at the inlet about 10 minutes after sunset.

We had three very large manta rays come right up to the transom of the boat, one was at least 10 feet across.  They are wild looking animals with those eyeballs extended out so far in front of their body and those big graceful wings - they look like a space ship or something.  They were fun to watch.  Tanner hooked up with another Tiger shark, I was just about to take a picture of it int eh water beside the boat when the leader snapped.  What a huge shark!

Beautiful day on the ocean with good friends and a box full of fish.  No Hoos but no complaints either.

Mid day quick trip

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Today was one of them days, not quite nice enough to enjoy a day of trolling in a small boat but too nice not to go ocean fishing.  So when that happens I break out my offshore flounder gear! 

I was launching at the boat ramp when I ran into a friend and invited him along. We caught a handful or two of finger mullet and headed for Rich’s inlet.  The wind was blowing from the NNE at about 15mph, so we knew it would be a little bumpy on top of those 3 footers that were rolling in.

There was a nice tide line right outside the inlet so we decide to pull some Yo-zuri deep divers for a little while.  We managed to catch 2 eating size tailor blues in a few short minutes and decided to head out to our destination a few miles offshore.

We anchored up and threw out a couple of mullet on Carolina rigs,  a light line with a cigar minnow and broke out the jigging gear too.  Very quickly I brought up an undersized flounder, then my buddy caught something….....  the first glance we got looked like a hammerhead shark but was too “peaceful” in coming to the boat.  Soon we realized it was a 4’ barracuda latched onto a 20+ inch flounder!  He had the flounder in his mouth side ways so that is why it looked like a hammerhead at first.  We measured what was left (no tail or right side of the fish) and there was over 18” so the flounder was at least 20 or 21 inches long.  Bummer.

Then the blues started hammering our baits, one more blue found its way to the box.  we were getting low on bait by now so we decided to pull anchor and head in and use our last few mullet to try for some red drum.  as soon as I threw over the anchor ball, my line gets hit.  Up comes a nice 18’ flounder.  We decided to use our last couple of baits there.  But blues got them so we headed home.  The anchor chain broke and we lost the anchor - guess it was time for a new one anyway

It was a quick trip (couple of hours) but was nice to get out for a while and also to fish with Rob - we don’t get many chances to fish together.  Now its time to get ready for our club meeting tonight and “debrief” everyone on our KMT. 

Catching report - August 15th

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Here’s my latest fishing report for the Topsail Island area: I had the opportunity to go out with my buddy Andrew yesterday on his 21’ Sea Hunt.  Andrew lives in Virginia but has a place in Topsail Beach and spends his vacations there.  He’s originally from Florida and is an avid angler!

The weather man was calling for decent seas so we decided to head offshore 25-30 miles looking for some mahi but also putting us in position for some nice bottom critters.  Andrew had a minor issue with his motor the night before so we headed to a spot near the first set of box cars as a first stop just to make sure all was okay before we headed out.

At my little rock, we trolled for a while catching 2 small kings and a medium small dolphin.  We were more set-up for dolphin and sailfish (spreader bars, ballyhoo rigs on daisy chains, etc) than for kings/dolphins so missed a few kings due to short strikes.  We did hook up one decent size king but he came unbuttoned near the boat. All the kings were release but the dolphin went in the box.

There was plenty of bait in the water but didn’t seem like any big fish were around and all was working well so we headed out to a spot in about 90-100 feet of water.  We trolled for a while with at least two sailfish knockdowns but couldn’t get a hook up.  So we switched over to bottom fishing and boated four nice sliver snapper, some grunts a really decent size triggers and a few other fish.  We saw a sand tiger shark that was at least 150 pounds follow one of our grunts up.  Andrew stuck a light line out but guess the shark was holding out for a grouper or something else tasty.

Then as we were finishing up a really huge, I mean HUGE shark came up to the boat.  My jaw dropped so low I almost drown , Andrew thinks it was tiger shark (not a sand tiger but an actual tiger shark) as it has lots of spots on its back.  I’m not sure but think he is probably right, all I know is that I’m glad he didn’t hand around too long!

It was a bit bumpy going out but the wind laid out and it was plan slick cam coming back home.  So we stopped for a quick troll at my rock on the way home, no luck though.

Was a great day on the water with a good friend, fair seas and some fresh fish in the box!

Alex’s First Fish

Saturday, July 04, 2009

My son and his family came home for the long week-end. Fred serves in the Army and has a wife and two kids, so we only get to fish together a few times a year at best. This was one of those times. A bonus was that I had the privilege of taking my granddaughter’s boyfriend fishing on only his second fishing trip of his life. Alex had never caught a fish of any sort, so I was on a mission to change that!

We left the house at 5:45 and launched, catching some pogies right there at the ramp and headed out of Rich’s inlet. Our first stop was a small ledge about 10 miles from Rich’s inlet. It was a bit sloppy, not rough but with wind from one direction and swells from another, I decided to start with some dead ballyhoo so we could use the extra trolling speed for steerage. Within 10 minutes of setting out our spread we had the first dolphin of the day on. We told Alex to pick up the rod. Soon after the fish jumped and we knew he had a dolphin on. I had given Alex a brief “tutorial” before we started to fish and he handled that fish just like an old pro! I gaffed the fish and now it was time for the customary pictures of Alex and his first fish.

Then it was back to fishing. Our expectation were high now, only to be dampened by another hour and a half with no more bites. So we picked up and moved a few miles further offshore. After an hour or so at the at spot we had our second dolphin of the day hooked up. This time my son, Fred, fought the fish. This one was slightly larger at about 10 pounds and fought nicely. Then the big drought set in. Finally we decided to move back in to the first spot. It has calmed down and was slick calm now.

We put out live bait this time. It was long long before we had a looker in our spread. The dolphin was sniffing our prop wash bait and had it going crazy while giving us a good show. Then it charged the bait and MISSED! One more time it made a pass, jumped and then left having never touched the bait. After a while we looked back and saw at least 25 - 30 small dolphin following our live bait. We threw every thing we had at them and couldn’t interest them, finally they left. Then so did we.

Great day on the water, even with the slow bite. It was great to spend time with my son and to see Alex catch his first fish. My 9 year old grandson was suppose to go with us but when we woke him up he wanted to go back to bed. Maybe next time he’ll go with us.

Alex and his first ever fish:

My son Fred with a nice July 4th Mahi: