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Offshore 6-2-09

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The weather man was calling for very calm seas yesterday and I had the opportunity to go offshore with my friend Taylor in his boat.  Another friend of his, Tanner, also went with us.  I meet Taylor at 4:15 (o’dark thirty for sure) at his house on Topsail Island.  We loaded the rest of the gear and ice and headed out meeting Tanner at the boat ramp.  We cleared New River Inlet about 5:30 and headed for the vicinity of the Swansboro Hole, 60 nautical miles offshore.

Our intend was to troll for a while and then do some bottom jigging.  We deployed our trolling spread at our first stop and soon after hooked up on a nice dolphin fish.  I pulled her in after quite a nice aerial display, we estimated her at between 12 - 15 pounds.  Right after that we had a knock down but no hook-up.  We saw a weed line and temperature slick nearby so we headed over there.  Nada.  We moved a few miles and hooked up another mahi.

We then trolled for quite a while with nothing.  So we headed fro some nice bottom numbers and started jigging.  Tanner had a nice red grouper sliced in half on the way up by a shark.  Then Tanner boated a nice triggerfish.  It was the biggest I have seen caught so far and weighed in at 7 pounds and 7 ounces, earning him a NC Citation!  We also caught a few red grouper, a strawberry grouper and a few other bottom fish. 


We decided to move inshore a bit and do some more trolling, hoping to catch a few more mahi and maybe a wahoo or yellowfin.  As I was deploying the prop wash bait I had a fish hit the bait just as I was putting the line into the flat line clip.  I had the monofiliment line across my fingertips and it pulled so hard that it burnt my skin on the fingers - the white, thin marks are very visible but not painful.  I let go and tried get the fish hooked up but never did see what it was.  A short while later the long line snapped off the outrigger and Tanner picked up the rod - it was nice billfish, maybe 7 or 8 feet long.  The fish sailed out of the water several times - I think it was a marlin but not sure if it was a white or a blue marlin.  After a few flights, crashign throught our spread, the fish headed straight for the boat and came unbuttoned.  Game over. 

It was an exciting minute or so and really got our blood pumping.  But that was it for trolling.  Another hour produced no bites so we finshed the day with a little jigging and then headed home.  Great day on the water with some friends and some nice fish in the box.  Hard to beat that!