Topsail Angler's Fishing Blog
Gulf Stream Trip
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
We left out of New River Inlet this morning about 4:30 and hit a starting point for trolling right at sunrise. It was a smooth ride out but got pretty choppy and was down right lumpy by mid-morning.
We had 30 ballyhoo rigged but decided to start with some fast trolling lures we also had rigged. Within 10 minutes we had the first fish on which turned out to be a 20 something pound Wahoo! We landed him amongst high fives around the boat. Twenty minutes later the port long line goes off, then the starboard long, then the starboard mid line and then, you guessed it, the port mid-line. We had a quad hook up and it looked like a fire drill was in progress. We manged to land 3 of the 4 fish, 2 gaffer dolphin and a small Wahoo. We released the Wahoo.
Then things go quiet for a while. Our buddy boat was yet to hook up a single fish pulling ballyhoo, so we decided to stick to the high speed stuff and cover some ground. Then two reels go to singing at the same time, we landed both, a pair of blackfin tuna!
We had a couple of short strikes, then another tuna was boated. This repeated several times. Then we had a screaming rod, over 100 yards peeled off then the reel went silent - we’ll never know but it acted like a Wahoo. Then we boated 3 more tuna during a period of about an hour.
By noon it was getting snotty so and we had to head directly into the wind/seas to get home, so we started in. About halfway in the wind laid down a bit and we did some more trolling with no luck. then a bit of bottom fishing. We caught a few nice black sea bass on roscoe jigs. We are treated to watching a Navy carrier and some Marine Harrier Jets running ops, that was very cool. There were also some helicopters in the air and one buzzed us a few times checking us out but we kept a safe distance from the ship but was close enough to enjoy the view.
Great day on the water!
Old Red Drum on the Neuse
Friday, September 10, 2010
It has become a tradition I look forward to every September, a treat really. A good friend of mine has an old house (circa 1890) on the Neuse River in Oriental. For several years now he has invited me to drag my old bones up there for a few days of fishing and relaxing. We target old drum, old red drum that is, the big ones, the old ones.
Some mistakenly call them BULL drum - bull drum are the large males, the females are just as big. We natives just call them OLD drum, some are male, some are female. They live to be over 50 years old and they grow BIG in their old age, real big, some are over 50 inches long and weigh over 70 pounds.
This year we chose the three days after labor day to meet and fish. We invited several other people but no one else was able to make it, there loss, we had a blast. We anchor up around 3 - 4 in the afternoon on a ledge, preferably near a point or slough and fish depths ranging from 8 - 16 feet. We use chunks of fresh striped mullet and put out bags of chum. Our tackle consists of heavy spinning gear with big #10 circle hooks, short leaders and pinned weights (these three things help reduce gut hooks). This is strictly a catch and release fishery.
I usually flounder/trout fish in the morning in some of the creeks and back waters, come in for lunch and then rest before heading back out at 3. This year I followed that routine and caught a few rat reds, small flounder and one under size spec - a baby slam if you will.
On our first evening we hooked three old red drum ranging in size from 38” to 42 inches. One was lost when it came in green and headed for the anchor line and broke off the line. Not a bad start! We were back at the ramp around 8, just after dark. On our second evening we hooked and landed two fish, a forty inch, fat drum and then a 38 incher. The first came at 5:30 and the second at around 6:45 We also caught a ray in between.
That was to be our last old drum of the trip. We tried real hard on the third night, fishing four different areas but no luck. But that didn’t spoil a great trip, we had a blast and 5 old drum ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, after all we are kind of old ourselves….......
Many thanks to my good friend Randy Durham for the invite and friendship! A sort vacation but a very nice one!
Topsail Spanish 8/31/10
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Gery (hunters haven) and I left the dock about 6:15 this morning to do some trolling. Our first stop was at the hard bottom and ledges about a mile of the beach in front of the Jolly Roger hotel. We caught a couple of nice Spanish Mackerel, one weighed over 4 pounds, and a small bluefish.
After an hour or so we decided to head further out as we really had hoped to find a king or two. We went to four or 5 different locations over the next few hours with not so much as a sniff. We came back to the Jolly Roger reef and tried a few more passes then headed home about 1:00. The seas were very calm and very little wind. Gery and I commented on how different that patch of ocean is likely to be two days from now…........
Cobia & a King
Saturday, August 07, 2010
The marine forecast took a turn for the better today so Gery and I decided to do some king fishing. We had passed on entering the Wild King Classic at Wrightsville Beach cause the forecast seemed a little iffy yesterday morning for a 19’ boat. But this is the Saturday for my fishing club’s monthly inner-club tournament so we fished in it.
Finding bait was no easy task, at least not decent sized menhaden. We did manage to finally get some, not as many as we would have liked but it was closing in on 8am and we wanted to fish. We had some ballyhoo for back-up anyway. There were four - five footer rolling in to New Topsail inlet and across the shoals but we made it out with no problem. It was smooth sailing from there with 4-5 foot swell on a 10 -12 seconds and almost no wind.
We fished near shore for an hour or so with nothing to show for it. So we headed out about 12 miles offshore and started trolling. After about 20 minutes the downrigger line goes off - not a big run and not out and away from the boat. But what ever it was felt big. We were thinking it acted like a shark but weren’t giving up on it just yet.
Gery was on the rod and couldn’t gain any ground but yet it wasn’t running, he said it felt like dead weight. So I cleared the rest of the lines and put the boat over the top of it. That worked as Gery started gaining some line. Finally after 30 or more minutes we get a look at it - COBIA! We landed it and passed high fives all around - nice fish. The fish was foul hooked in the belly and that was why it was like a dead weight pulling it in. We hooked up again shortly after but what ever it was went straight down and SHREDDED my fluorocarbon leader on the rocks.
We didn’t have any more hits there so we moved to another spot, then another. Finally at that last spot we caught a decent king. We’ll take it to weigh in tonight at the club tonight and eat some of the cobia for dinner tomorrow. The club is having boiled shrimp and boiled corn for dinner - Yummy!
Mackerel
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
The marine forecast was looking great for today and my friend Mark from Sanford was down. So we decided to go out for a half day of fishing. We didn’t find any decent sized menhaden close by and didn’t want to spend all morning looking, so we headed out of the inlet around 7:30 with some nice ballyhoo.
Our first stop was the rocks off of South Topsail Beach. We hadn’t been trolling long when the starboard long line goes to singing, nice sized Spanish - about 5 pounds worth. Then a king takes the other long line. After a pause, we boated another Spanish, this one just under 6 pounds and then another king.
Low tide was at 9am and about 8:30 or so the bite just died - nothing between then and 9:45. So we decided to head offshore and fish for an hour or so - tried a couple of spots about 8 miles out with no luck. We needed to be finished around noon so we headed back for a few more trips around the South Topsail rocks. Nothing except one small shark (the only one for the day). We ended up with 2 Spanish and 2 kings - not stellar but we had a very enjoyable morning and are having fresh fish for dinner so no complaints here!