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Fishing Team

TortTeaser

2002 Reports

December 26-30

I joined Greg, Jeff, and Bob Weathers on their first trip with Jeff's new 31' Contender the Triple Gobble down to Stuart, FL in search of the legendary winter Sailfish action.

We departed from Monks Corner, SC at 7 o'clock the evening of the 26th and drove through the night to Stuart.  Our road trip ended just before sunrise, as we launched the boat and headed through the inlet.  We turned the boat just north of due east and headed to the warm deep water, just under ten miles away.

The boat was amazing, in the three days of fishing we fished in seas from 3' to 7', and we were never beaten up after fishing.  I never knew that you didn't have to feel like you had been in a 12 round boxing match after fishing, which made it incredible easy to wake up and head out the next morning.  At one point we were coming in with 5-7 footer pushing us at 40 mph.  Wow!

In a nutshell, we found a lot of Kings and Dolphin.  You could have loaded the boat up with Kings in 70' of water, and there were plenty of Dolphin around the weeds, but we didn't land a single Sail.

The first day we had several knockdowns that were definitely a result of a Sails, but no hookups.  We had hoped to get the skunk the boat the first day, but we were not discouraged by our first attempt.  The second day held more promise, it turned out to be the roughest of the three fishing in 5-7' seas, but around 10 a.m. we had our first hookup.  As I was dropping a bally back on the outrigger, and was away from the rod putting the clip out, the Sail hit the bally as it passed the dredge.  I quickly grabbed the rod, trying to increase the drag to set the hook, saw one good jump, and felt the line go slack.  I felt pretty bad, but I thought it was the beginning of a successful day.  It wasn't until several hours later that our second Sail hookup occurred.  This time Jeff was on the rod.  The sail remained hooked for a little longer this time, maybe 30-45 seconds before he threw the hook.  And that was it.  We had a bunch of knockdowns, but no more hookups.

We caught a bunch of fish, including the Kings and Dolphin, Cobia, Barracuda, and a  Morray Eel, etc., but no Sailfish.  Though we didn't catch the intended species, it was still a wonderful trip.  One thing that might have increased our hookups might have been a flybridge, thinking that some of the strikes we missed might have been avoided had we seen the fish in our baits before they struck.

December 23

Crawford and I took one last trip for 2002 up to Harkers Island in search of Speckled Trout.  We awoke early in the morning and motored to the back of the Cape Lookout Rock Jetty in Crawford's Jones Brothers.  After a short walk across the beach in our waders, we arrived at our destination and began to fish.  It was just short of an hour before sunrise when we wet our first line, and our only luck was a Mullet I snagged with my Mirror Lure.

Finally, as Sunrise approached, the fish turned on.  It was unbelievable.  Not only were Speckles landed almost every other cast, but they were huge.  After a couple of hours, we left, having caught and released well over our limit, one being a certified citation.

After a couple of hours of sleep, we returned to the Rock Jetty, fishing from the boat to catch the evening bite.  We caught and released several more fish and capped off a wonderful last day in North Carolina on the water for 2002.

November 9

Reed and Johnathan Wilkins headed to Hatteras to chase the tales of the big kings.  They fished on John's 18' Parker and managed to land a 20-25# King, but were plagued with bait problems that kept them from catching more.  With only a couple of baits, their day wasn't as productive as they had hoped, but did report a good bite at the Smell Wreck.

October 20

Headed back out to the Shark Hole to try and put Reed, his dad Joe, and my parents on some fish, but could only manage one small king in our limited fishing time.  We had a little bit of a late start, but found bait quickly and made good time out in the calm seas.  Unfortunately, the hot bite from the day before had seemed to slow down.  Only saw a couple of fish boated before we had to leave, but another beautiful day on the water.

We couldn't fish the HOOK, so our season ended only weighing two fish (we should have weighed our Jolly Mon Fish).  Though it wasn't a spectacular year of fishing, we still qualified to fish the USAA and the SKA National Championships.  We would love to be able to fish them, but lack of money and too much work will prevent our participation.  Good luck to all those that can.

Fall Brawl

October 19

Brant again put on another outstanding tournament, drawing 270 boats for this one-day event that coincided with some beautiful fall weather.  This number of boats increased the payout by 50%; however, we were not fortunate enough to see any of that money.

The change in weather from the past weekend had our team second-guessing every decision.  Though we had caught a nice king on Sunday at the Lighthouse Rocks, we were unsure of what the dramatic temperature change would have on the fish.  We live by the motto that "fish swim," so we had not set in stone our plans to return to the same spot.

After checking the temperature charts, I figured that the best spot to start would be in the warmer waters off the Shark Hole.  This idea was correct, and confirmed by a hot bite there on Friday.  Unfortunately, everyone else and their brother knew this and it sounded as if the Shark Hole might look more like Wal-Mart on Saturday.

We debated about changing our plans, but stuck with our guns and decided to start there, and then work back into the Lighthouse Rocks.

Morning comes and it's cold.  Shorts, covered by jeans, covered by bibs and the sting of the first colder weather of the season can still be felt, but I love it.  Bait was no problem, as we loaded the well just after 7 a.m.  The seas were flat and we made great time out to the spot.

After a few minutes with our lines in the water, we start noticing that there are several boats hooked up.  Not long afterwards, we join this trend.  The bite is one, with many double and triple hookups all around, but the size is consistent; small.

It doesn't take long before we know we need to move.  Thinking that the fish may have already moved back on the beach, we began planning a possible trip to the Lighthouse Rocks.  However, before we settled in with our decision, we got word of a good bite at the Myrtle Beach Rocks, 35 miles away.  After a little debate, we are headed south.

Five or six miles from the Shark Hole we find ourselves in the middle of acres of Cigar Minnows on top of the water.  Needing some fresh bait we find this convenient.  Not that jigging Cigar Minnows is particularly difficult, but it was amazing to watch Ryan dip the line in the water and see hundreds of Cigar Minnows crash the Sabiki.  It takes only seconds to fill the live well.  We deploy our lines, hoping that some large kings have found kingfish paradise in this enormous amount of bait, but are unsuccessful and pack it up after a half hour.

Before continuing onward toward the Myrtle Beach Rocks, we are informed that the bite had slowed considerable there.  Concerned, but left with few options, we continue on.

After one stop at the 410/510, which proved to be very unproductive, we arrive and join the fleet.  There are a bunch of boats, but no one is hooked up.  We felt the pressure as tournament time dwindled, and we hadn't found the fish we were looking for.  Finally, some action picks up, and the bite looks like it might turn back on, but we see only small fish.  It seems like years passed before our turn was called.  The Avet finally came back to life as our king made quick time towards another boat.  We knew it wasn't much of a fish, but still didn't want to loose it, so I pushed down the throttle to stay on top of the fish.  The reel was amazing to keep up with the speed of the pursuit, not once allowing the line to go slack.  After a short battle we put the fish we would eventually weigh on board, a whopping 17 pounds.

It wasn't the 30+ fish we were looking for, but it was something decent to weigh.  As our departure time neared, we realized that we wouldn't have a repeat of the prior weekend size wise, but had a great time in the beautiful ocean nonetheless.  We cruised in as fast as we pleased in comfort, and managed to beat most of the anglers to the weigh-in and avoid the crowd.

Up next, the HOOK.

October 13

I was just sitting down to write the fishing report when I decided to check the Fall Frantic Atlantic results.  I now feel a little sick.  Sunday was a lot of fun, but when you look back and say "what-if," you can quickly forget the excitement.

I had planned to fish the Frantic Atlantic with a friend of mine from Holden Beach on my boat, so long as the weather was calm.  Then Kyle, which began to form back in the early 1980s and has been hanging out in the Atlantic for what seemed to be years finally starts making its way towards the east.  After debating all week what the weather was going to do, we finally decided that all the weather reports for Saturday were not looking good, so we would sit this one out.

I am on Fall Break through Tuesday, so to say the least I was not excited about the forecast for my four days of vacation.  I headed to Wilmington on Friday, planning to partake in a Micro-Brew beer sampling Saturday afternoon at Hugh MacRae Park.  Luckily however, I suggested we ride down to the ocean to see how rough it was.  Ryan and I were soon greeted by flat calm seas.  This threw a wrench into our plans; beer or fishing.  After a short debate, we were packed and headed to Holden, realizing we could do both there.

Before leaving Wilmington, I got a call that informed us the tournament had been postponed.  Obviously the tournament directors had heard the same weather reports we based our early decision on, and postponed the tournament to Sunday.  Now we debated whether to fish the tournament or not, and though Brian and I felt that we should, Ryan didn't want too, and we were easily discouraged and settled into the plans of fun fishing.

Chalk up one mistake to Ryan.

As we crested the Holden Beach Bridge just past noon, our mouths dropped as we could seed our reflection in the ocean as if it were a mirrored table.  We then decided that we would try to hurry and fish this afternoon.  Though we managed to get out in the ocean, we couldn't bait up quick enough to make an afternoon trip feasible.  So we had to wait until Sunday.

Sunday morning we awoke at 7:00 and gathered ourselves, our gear, and our bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches and headed to Ocean Isle.  There we picked up Tony and Mikey and were off into the calm Atlantic.  Tony's neighbors, at both the beach and in Lumberton, had beaten us off the dock and were already looking for bait.  We catch up to them, bait up, and quickly head towards the Sharkhole.

We had thought that Frank (the neighbor) was heading to the Jungle, so had decided to head in the opposite direction to cover more ground.  It turned out he had changed plans and went to the Sharkhole as well.  The plan was to start offshore and work our way in.

Fifteen minutes after getting the lines in the water, we get a strike, but didn't hook up.  Ryan grabs the rod and drops the bait back.  The fish comes back and nails that bait again, and rips off over half the spool before a bird nest forms and the line breaks.  Chalk up another one for Ryan.

The reels go silent for a while, and all seems quiet around us except for Frank's crew.  While no one else seemed to be doing much of anything, they had caught four kings, one just over 30#s.  We had wanted to leave, but we didn't want to get out fished by Frank and Matt (who was quite chatty on the radio), or leave a spot which seemed to be holding some fish.

Finally we had another strike, and Ryan grabbed the rod.  He quickly got rid of that fish, as if we weren't trying to catch them, and yes, all of our troubles are being blamed on Ryan.

The next strike brought elbows from Tony as he rushed the rod, and we quickly had our first fish, albeit a very small fish.  We weren't going to be skunked, but we were going to be very embarrassed if that was all we could catch.  After one last strike at the Sharkhole, which didn't hook up (and yes, Ryan was the first person to touch the rod), we decided that it was officially time to move.  We had spent way too much time in this one spot.

We move inshore to the Lighthouse #1, and found it covered in weeds.  After a futile attempt to cast a spoon into the numerous schools of Bonito which we saw everywhere, we moved closer to the Shipping Channel.  Spotting a parking lot just off of Lighthouse #2, we decided to mosey over and see if we saw anyone hooked up.  With three people on the bow, we knew we needed to stay.

Not even five minutes after getting the lines wet again, we had a nasty strike.  I use the word strike because once Ryan grabbed the rod, that was all it was; yet another fish that would not do battle with us today.

By now Ryan was getting a hard time, especially from me (although nothing that happened was necessarily his fault, it damn sure wasn't mine, and he was always the closest to the rod).

Another ten minutes passed, and then Tony found himself standing beside a screaming reel.  This was the first opportunity we have had to use the new reels, and we were extremely satisfied.  The Avet howled as the fish tore offshore, but within seconds, I looked back in horror as I saw Tony with the rod down in the water between the engines.  Time seemed to stop as the reel went quiet and the line came to a halt.  As most of us stared in confusion, Brian quickly jumped over the transom and freed the line from the trim tab.  Tony was on the bow and got his first look at the fish.  I was standing with him as he announced to the crew that we had a hog (however no one believed him since he has been known to embellish fish weights).  A couple of circles under the boat and our prize of the day was in the boat.

I believe Tony was the happiest man out on the Atlantic at that moment of time, as we secured his first citation king.  We took some time to celebrate, and decided that since we had run out of beer, it was time to head in (although it was a tough call leaving a hot bite).

Our afternoon was looking good (although we discussed the whole tournament thing), but a good fish is a good fish no matter what, and trust me, that's what I've been telling myself a lot.

On the other side of the Cape Fear, Crawford and Joe went to the stream on the Scott Free and landing 9 nice wahoos, many over 40 pounds and two nice bull dolphin.

September 22

Crawford and Joe headed out to the Same Ole today and found some nice fish.  Crawford reported that the seas were a little rougher than the previous day, but the fishing was fantastic.  Two triple hookups with 40-50# Wahoo, 2 nice bull Dolphin, and a Sailfish release were all handled with ease as the crew landed every strike they had.  That's a good success ratio.

September 21

Reed went with David Stephenson of Lumberton on his new 40' Blackfin Express, Tobacco Money, out to the Steeples.  The radio indicated a better bite at the Same Ole, with reports of nice Dolphin, Wahoo, and even Tuna, but the Lumberton boys still picked up three Wahoo, all about 25#s.  Not a bad day out on the water, especially with near perfect sea conditions for the ride out and in.

September 20

Well, we couldn't fish the Wrightsville Beach KMT, and boy did we pick one bad weekend not to fish.  By far the best tournament fishing weather all year.  I have to give credit to Rob of Coastal Weather; he nailed the forecast and predicted the good weather all week long, while NOAA was totally wrong all week.  Did however enjoy Full Tilt in Wilmington on Saturday.  Word of the tournament was that the Cape Fear Channel was the only bite, with the winner coming from Yaupon.  Not sure how accurate that information is, but I'm sure if we had been fishing the Channel, we wouldn't have seen a fish (with our luck).

Planning on fishing the HOOK, would really like to fish the HOOK, haven't fished in so long worried about becoming rusty, but the weather is turning really nasty for this weekend.  I hope something changes to calm everything down and keep all of these hurricanes away.  Hopefully Rob can give us some good news.

August 31

We sat out the SBIKMT; it looked like it was going to be too rough.  Only two fish were weighed out of approximately 12 boats in the 23' and Under category, a whopping 13#s took home the cash.  Congratulations to Team Cruise Control who was the top 23' and under boat.

First place in the big boat category was 38#, followed by a 31# fish, and the rest of the top ten was in the 20# class.  I hear the number of about 90 boats in the tournament.

We won't be back on the water until Wrightsville, so I hope everything shapes up well for a good weekend.

Shallotte Inlet KMT

August 16-17

August 15, 2002

I headed down to the beach on Thursday afternoon to get the boat ready and to look for bait, but soon discovered that my batteries had been left on, and were dead.  I tried to jumpstart the boat with a jump pack, but there was not enough juice to completely turn the engine over.  My bait mission was ruined, so I put a charger on the batteries and headed to the Captain's meeting.   I waited until Ryan could check the progress of the recharging process before I entered the tournament.  The Captain's meeting was a small gathering, a sign that the anticipated 200 boats would not be met.  Not even half that number entered, as only 96 teams registered to fish.

August 16, 2002

We had decided that since this was a two day tournament and because we didn't have bait, we would sleep in a little later today, so that Saturday would be more bearable.  That being the case, my alarm went off at 6:30, we wake, dress, and head out on the water by 7:00.

Our strategy did not hurt us in any way, because as we began looking for bait we found many teams, who had probably been up for quite some time, still looking.  We quickly baited up and headed to the Jungle.

Upon arriving at the Jungle, after a calm and uneventful ride for the 32-mile trip, we set our spread around the other fifteen boats.  After a short wait, we had our first strike.  We quickly landed and released a 10# king.  We noticed several boats with multiple hookups, but they all seemed to be with small fish.

After a while without another strike, we picked up and moved to the 410/510 area.  The weeds were much thicker here, so we anchored and began to chum it out.  We jigged up some extra bait, and sat and waited.  As the time passed, we watched a storm build along the beach.  Eventually we decided that we needed to move closer to home so that we wouldn't be caught by it.

We pushed over to 390/390 where we had two missed strikes and a hound fish sky on our bait.  We marked more bait here than anywhere else, but couldn't produce a hookup.

We finally head in when we spot a break in the clouds, hoping to find some bait for the next day.  Before we found any bait, we got a call from Greg and he told us that they had found another 31# fish off of Georgetown.  With little debate, we decide to fish south the next day.

August 17, 2002

Three a.m. arrives awfully early today, as we load into the car and begin our journey to Georgetown.  The trip was actually pleasant, as there was no traffic through Myrtle Beach.

We put the boat in and headed towards the Georgetown Jetty.  There were many boats, from both the Shallotte Tourney and the Fishing for Miracles tournament.  Several miles down the river we noticed 10+ boats looking for bait in a backwater bay.   We followed them into the shallow water, but noticed that the bait was small, so we headed to the beach.

After making the turn around the jetty, we headed to the beach and quickly loaded up on some great bait.  We put in the coordinates for out hole and were off.

Two miles short of our destination, everything but the engine went dead.  No chart plotter, no fish finder, no GPS, no VHF, no bait pump, no bilge, no horn, no nothing.  We still made our way near our spot, set our spread with our slowly dying baits, and hoped for a miracle.

Meanwhile, I tried to locate our electrical problem to no avail.  We finally came to the realization that we might not be fishing long.  Around 9:30 the prop wash bait got our attention.  Ryan dropped the bait back, as we simultaneously claimed "shark."

Then the sound of a king mackerel was realized as the fish screamed by the boat heading offshore.  In the process, we lost a downrigger ball, but still kept the fish.  Within ten minutes we boated the fish without much excitement.

We kept fishing, but only managed several small sharks.  By 12:15, we decided to make our way in to insure that we would make the weigh in.  Shortly after coming on plane, we noticed an odd sound.  We soon realized the its cause was a crack in the T-Top.  After a fifteen minute repair effort to stabilize the top, we were slowly underway again.

The backwater of the waterway was beautiful, and the trip was uneventful.  I didn't push the throttle too hard, and only burned 53 gallons for the entire trip.  We had hoped to make the Sunset Beach Bridge, but fell 15 minutes short of the goal.  We were slowed by the T-Top problem and more no wake zones than expected.  We exited the waterway at Little River and made the last few miles of the trip via the ocean.

As we pulled up to the weigh in with three minutes to spare, we were surprised that no other boats were there.  The SKA guy asked if we were in the 23' and Under division, a question I felt should have been obvious, and then asked if we had been in rain after looking at Ryan covered in water from head to toe from the ocean ride.

The fished weighed just over 19#, which was a little disappointing since we thought he may weigh down the scales a little more, but were happy we made the run so that we knew our limits.

Next up the SBIKMT.

Also want to congratulate Team Cruise Control, who fish a 23' Sailfish, on their second place finish in the 23' and under category in the Shallotte Inlet KMT with a 24# king.

The Fishing for Miracles in Charlestown was also this weekend, and Greg and Jeff on the Triple Gobble are still fishing well.  They landed a 31# king that placed them 10th overall, and fourth in the 23' and under category.  This fish places the team over the 100# mark in the SKA.

August 13

Planning on heading to the Tower, Reed joined a couple of guys from Holden Beach Marina and fished today.  However, it quickly became apparent that they could not venture that far out as the 4-5 foot seas slowed their headway to a crawl.

After an hour and a half of running, they dropped their lines in to do a little bottom fishing at a ledge just nine miles off.  Catching only trash fish, they picked up and moved to AR 455 where they caught some nice Blue Runners, but nothing else exciting.

They finally pushed off to the 15 Mile Rock, where Reed convinced them to do a little trolling.  Reed set the spread with a Blue Runner on the long line and ballyhoo on the rest.  Shortly afterwards, Butch noticed the rod tip twitch.  As Reed dropped the ballyhoo back, a Sailfish, estimated at 60#, slammed it!  Reed said the fish put on an exciting show and was released unharmed after being revived.  Several photos were taken, which will be added as soon as possible.

August 10

Ryan and Tony headed out to the 390/390 area aboard Tony's boat, re-powered with twin Honda 225 Four Strokes.  Ryan now claims that I must too add Four Stokes, as he thoroughly enjoyed the sound, or lack thereof.

Anyway, as far as fishing goes, they didn't exactly do much.  I believe they had lines in by 3 o'clock, p.m. and only managed to snag a couple of large Spanish.  I believe they had more of a booze cruise rather than fishing expedition.

Reed is down at Holden all week, and planning on fishing the Shipping Channel/Lighthouse Rocks region on Monday, and heading to the Tower on Tuesday.  Hopefully he will find some fish.

August 6

Crawford landed a nice Drum weighing over 40# while fishing in the Pamlico Sound.  He got a little video footage that I will add when I get back to Columbia.

August 2-3

More tournament success for the Triple Gobble!  Jeff and Greg only managed a 15# fish on Friday, but they came back in a big way on Saturday with a 28# and a 30# which clinched the first place slot in the 23' and Under division and 16th place overall.

Day one they fished the Not So Secret Hole with little success, but found a promising spot on the way in.  I went with them on Friday night on a successful bait mission, but at that time they had yet to decide where they would fish the following day.  They ended up returning where they had found bait on the previous day.  That decision was a good one, as the winning fish hit a pogy on the downrigger.

This tournament success will further lock their hold on both the SKA and USAA 23' and Under Class.

I was unable to fish this weekend, but I was fortunate enough to be able to witness the weigh in on Friday.  Man, what a spectacular sight.  This was the first time I have seen all the fish come in from the dock, and boy was it impressive.  It was great fun to see all of the beautiful boats and watch all of the Captains handle the wind and current.  Check out some photos I shot before heading to Columbia.

Carolina Beach Got-Em-On King Classic

July 13-14

July 12, 2002

This tournament was the second event in Division 13 of the SKA, the third in the Southern Division of the USAA, and the first time we will be fishing on Brian's 23' Neptune.  I left work early on Friday to headed down to the beach to fill out all of the paperwork and get us registered for the tournament, while Ryan and Brian gassed and prepared the boat when they got off work.

As always, there were still a few items that needed to be taken care of on the boat before our fishing day began.  One of these items involved installing new snaps for the curtains, a task that turned out to be well worth the effort.

On a side note, at the registration I discussed with the USAA one idea I had which concerned our future participation.  As you might know, the USAA tallies 5 fish from the 10 tournaments that comprise their trail.  This setup probably has many advantages and disadvantages that one may argue, but our problem is created with the fact that we are planning to fish five tournaments on one boat, and 5 tournaments on another.  With the points following the boat, it would put us at a severe disadvantage having to weigh a fish in each tournament.  This is made even more difficult considering we can't catch a fish this year, and when we do we don't weigh it, but that is another matter.

July 13, 2002

And so it continues...

5 a.m. on Saturday morning, while tying our rigs on the rods sitting at the dock in Bradley Creek, the sky falls on top of us as a torrential rainstorm soaks through our yellow gear.  It was the beginning of a bad weekend.

When the rain finally slackened enough so that we could see the front of the boat, we unleashed the lines and made our way down the waterway.

The plan was simple; get bait and head to the Lighthouse rocks.  We knew that it would be a little rough, but figured we could manage to make it and join what we expected to be a parking lot.

As we cruised past Carolina Beach, I almost completed a sentence that would haunt us the entire weekend.  "Ah, bait won't be a problem."

As we went under the Snows Cut Bridge, we noticed a flip but decided that it was too turbulent there with all of the boats flying by, plus there would be plenty on our way to the Lighthouse Rocks.  We didn't even flinch as we passed Carolina Beach, one of the five times we would go by it.

We made our way down the Cape Fear, spotting no bait along the way.  However, we were still confidant that bait would not be a problem off of Oak Island.  We run the cut from the channel into the ocean and notice several boats heading in the opposite direction.  We knew this could be bad news.  As it always seems to be, our only luck is bad.  Those boats, which we would shortly be following, were headed north to look for bait, finding Oak Island barren.

Back up the Cape Fear, from which we had left less than an hour before.  It wasn't until the Carolina Beach Basin where we netted our small, but precious baits.

If you can imagine, we were less than pleased by this point in time.  Refusing to fish south, since weighing a king would require two more trips up and down the Cape Fear, we decided to try our luck at Carolina Beach Inlet.

It is really funny that we seem to fish inlets every tournament, especially considering that we would never choose to fish an inlet if our life depended on it for fun.  We only get stuck there during tournaments.

As far as a Journal goes, there is not much to report.  There was gray rain cloud that followed us all day, and we caught one shark.  That's about it.

We end the day and travel down the ICW to Holden Beach, where we planned to stay the night, and get a jump on heading south tomorrow.

July 14, 2002

This day does not begin well.  I decided to try and erase my memories of the previous day with liquid painkiller, and the early morning is more difficult that usual.  In fact, I am usually responsible for getting everyone to start moving in the morning, but today I try to sleep in as late as possible.

We board the boat in the canal, and I am already queasy.  I was not enthused about fishing today.  Maybe staying up late and drinking wasn't a good idea.

We leave the canals and we are greeted by our rain cloud, the one that followed us all day yesterday.  We start by heading south, and then turn around to head towards Southport to try and fake the cloud out, but to no avail.  We get wet.

The day continues much as it did before.  No bait all morning until we finally are forced to head up to the Carolina Beach Basin and find bait, and few at that.

We start at Carolina Beach Inlet, with more boats than yesterday, and fish for about an hour.  Then we head in, re-bait with plenty of large pogies, and go back to the inlet.

As if by a miracle, we had one fortunate event occur.  Two storms, one from the north and one from the south, had begun to look like they were bearing down on us, focused on some sort of meteorological target fixed on the bow of Brian's boat.  However, though we thought the storms would surely converge, creating the perfect storm, they both somehow missed us.  It was the only thing that went well.

At the end of the day, we had only caught and released one large Spanish.  Boy this tournament sucked.

It looks as if we will probably sit out the King of the Cape.

Jolly Mon KMT

July 6

July 4, 2002

It doesn't seem to matter how much time I plan to spend to get the boat ready for a tournament, it is never enough.  The more time I allow for boat maintenance, the more problems that seem to arise.

I only had a couple of things to accomplish; reinstall the transducer for the depth sounder and to replace the T-Top screws with through-bolts and locking nuts, but as it turned out, I was in for more than I expected.

I picked the boat up from McKee Custom Boats, who had installed a new Racor fuel filter with a water separator for me.  I launched the boat and immediately noticed that there was a problem.  I was able to get the boat going forward at 19 hundred RPMs, but no more, and even worse, no less.  The remote was stuck and I couldn't power down.  I slowly made my way to my canal and cut the engine off, threw out my anchor and tried to identify the problem.  When I cut the power the remote moved freely once again, but when I tried to restart the engine it over revved up to 56 hundred rpms.  The first thing that popped into my head was the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I flagged down a friend and I was towed to my dock.

July 5, 2002

The boat had been working fine before the new filter was installed, so maybe that was the problem.  I tried to debate how the filter could cause the engine to race, thinking maybe it was starving the engine of fuel, but that would cause it to stall, not race.  I checked to make sure that none of the linkages were broken, and they all looked fine at least to me.  I didn't know what the problem was; I needed help.

Trying to find someone with time to look at the engine and fix it on July 5 was more than difficult, so I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to get on the water by Saturday.  I thought about the fact that since Yamaha was a sponsor of the Jolly Mon there was a good chance there might be a support trailer there.  Luckily there was, and after having Reed tow me to the ramp I pulled the boat to the tournament site and the Yamaha technician fixed my problem.  It was a jammed throttle valve, and within a few minutes we were set for the tournament.

All of this had put us a little behind schedule, but even with the engine troubles we were still able to find some pogies and pen them up for the next day.  Unfortunately the late night thunderstorms kept us from finishing the work on the boat that we had planned to do, so the next day would involve an early start.

July 6, 2002

Well, the predicted slight west wind was not what we encountered early Saturday morning.  The passing thunderstorms the night before had indicated the passing of the cold front that had been predicted to remain further north, and with it came 10-15 knot NE winds.  Although the weather had changed, our plans had not.  We decided to start at the Sharkhole and chase the tales of the 58# king.

We had lines in the water sometime before 7 a.m. and awaited our early strike, yet none came.  More and more boats arrived; it seemed as if it was no secret of the big 58# king that had come from this area.

So many boats were is this area, that there must have been a shortage of original boat names.  I happened to look over my shoulder and noticed a Sea Swirl checking my prop wash bait.  Before I could become enraged with how close he was to my stern, I noticed that his boat named looked strikingly similar to mine; if fact, it was the exact same!  So now I have a twin, in name at least.

We keep trolling hoping that the bite will turn on, but none does.  We pass the time trying to free gaff the peanut dolphin swimming by our boat, not wanting to actually injure them, but just trying to pass the time.   (I don't think they had much to worry about, they were very quick.)

Then we decided to use some of them for bait, so we jigged a couple of them and put them in our spread.  They pulled well, but we had no strikes.  It was 10:30 a.m. and we had devoted more time to the Sharkhole than we should have, so off we go.

We headed to the 65-foot hole and find nothing interesting.  We jigged some large Cigar Minnows and moved to the Jungle.  Within minutes we had a strike, but it didn't connect.  Could be a Dolphin?  We don't know.

Then the long line is slammed, and we see a nice Dolphin busting the surface.  Finally, our first fish of the day other than the peanuts we caught for bait.  Brian grabs the rod and quickly brings the Dolphin to the boat within minutes.  We left all our lines in the water hoping for another strike, preferably a King, and everything was going well until Reed tried to gaff him.  Unfortunately Reed struck the hard part of the fish's head and the gaff just bounced off.  I will give Dolphin credit, they learn quickly.  That fish definitely knew that whatever that large floating object was (our boat) was not good.  Thirty minutes pass before I can stick the gaff in him and get him aboard.

By this time I was a little peeved at this process.  We had pulled all of our lines but one in and had wasted close to forty-five minutes with this fish.  Plus, we had drifted far from our hole and to top it all off we now had a boat hound-dogging us because we were in fish and I couldn't get away from him.  The Dolphin was placed in the box without much thought, estimating his weight around 15#.  We knew that there was a Dolphin prize, but assumed this fish wouldn't win.  Plus, we didn't want to give up the fish for no reason when he could make excellent table fare.

We set our spread again, and within 10 minutes we had our next strike, and this one we thought was a King.  Reed grabbed the rod and worked the fish very tentively.  We could tell it wasn't big and I wanted to get the fish to the boat quickly, but didn't want Reed to risk loosing it.  Another long battle proceeded, and finally our first tournament King of the season was in the box.  It wasn't big, estimated in the low teens.

We returned to fishing and by now the houndog (who will remain nameless) was really pissing me off.  I turned left and he turned left.  I turned right and he turned right.  It was like having a damn shadow, one that prevents you from going the direction you would prefer.  Finally, before some choice words were shared over the radio, we break away from our shadow and troll along.

Unfortunately, our reels would remain silent the rest of the day.  We had decided to fish until 3:45 p.m., figuring that getting in to the weigh-in would be difficult if we had a good fish, but not too concerned about weighing our small King.  This thinking would turn out to be very costly.

Making way into the chop was slow and painful.  We were not making good enough time to make the weigh-in, so I altered our course with the trough, hoping that the seas would lie down closer to shore.  After trudging through the seas for twenty miles, I finally slowed the boat down, realizing that the seas were too rough for us to make the weigh in.

We slowly made our way to the house, swinging by Lockwood Inlet to pick up the pogy pen.  When we got in, we weighed the King at 12# and the Dolphin at 23#.

It wasn't until I was in the shower after reaching the house that I began to think that our dolphin might have been big enough to win the Dolphin category.  A sinking feeling in my stomach began to weigh on me, and at the tournament awards ceremony, my feeling became a reality.  The winning Dolphin was 20.6#, almost 3# less than our fish.

We learned a lessen that has been told before, "always weigh your fish," but this time I'll add another phrase, "no matter what type of fish it is."

On another note, my parents also fished the tournament and caught a nice Dolphin, and more importantly, found a Jolly Jug valued at $250.

We will most likely be fishing the Carolina Beach Got-Em-On tournament, so look for us on Brian's boat, named the Nuttin Better for this weekend.

July 1

An exciting weekend for Greg and Jeff Weathers as they capture their first tournament victory at the Hanckel KMT.  They landed a 39.5# fish on Friday, which was their only strike of the day.  However, it was all they needed for the tournament win.  Day two had them searching for anything to weigh to grab the aggregate prize as well.  They lost a 25# fish to a Barracuda or Shark, but did manage a 21#er that netted them the aggregate title as well.

This victory further secures their clinch on first place in the USAA 23' and under division, and should propel them to first in the 23' and under class of the SKA.  Read about the tournament on the SKA website here.

I'm real happy for my friends, but I need to one up them this weekend and do well at the Jolly Mon.

Down in my area, I didn't fish this weekend, but as I left the beach this morning the ocean was calm and I hope it will remain this way for the upcoming tournament.

Good luck to all in the Jolly Mon.

Greater Wilmington KMT

June 14-15

June 14, 2002

The Curse of the Greater Wilmington, Chapter 3

Day one of the Greater Wilmington and someone forgot to turn the fan off last night.  We awake to howling 20 knot winds out of the southwest that would make fishing the south facing beaches of Brunswick County less than pleasant, so we plan on heading north.

It is no surprise that we venture north towards Wilmington; it only makes sense that when we stay on Holden Beach we fish off of Wrightsville, and when we stay on Wrightsville, we fish off of Holden.  However, without much thought, we make way toward the Southport checkout, heading up the river to look for bait.

It wasn't until the Carolina Beach Basin that we saw any signs of bait, and what we did see was small.  So we left the Basin and headed towards the inlet.  Just before the inlet, a friendly and kind man, fishing by himself in a red center console, directed us to plenty of mid-sized bait.  Not the jumbos we would prefer, but something to get the day started with.

Out the inlet and past the sea buoy and we placed our spread.  It didn't take more than five minutes after I let out the last line, a double-pogy rig in the prop wash, until a teenage king skyrocketed on that rig, but he missed every bit of it, only scarring the hell out of the baits.  Excited that we might have some luck, we wait for the next strike.  And that's when the sharks moved in.

The first shark of the tournament was small, in fact, I believe the pogy probably put up a good fight for its life, and would have won had it not been for the hooks in him.  Needless to say, the size of the shark was not impressive.

We think of moving elsewhere, but the seas are very angry today, and we just can't go anywhere.  We stay at Carolina Beach Inlet hoping for a miracle.

Thirty minutes later, and we had king.  The runs were short, he wasn't huge, but we finally got him close enough to the boat to see that he was indeed a kings, and poof, he vanished as the hooks pulled.  The Greater Wilmington Curse stills lives strong.

Our first opportunity was missed, but to be sure there would be more.

We set our spread again, still working around the numerous boats until our next strike, which was a 5# Spanish.

In the meantime, to our horror, our fried chicken was ruined when the Ziploc bag failed.  Now if we didn't catch fish, we were going to be very angry.

We fish as hard as possible in the increasingly choppy seas, which were almost impossible to troll into.  We work inside the buoy, outside the buoy, John's Creek, and finally worked down the beach until we decided that we would call it a day and look for bait on the ride home.

Even though it was further to Masonboro Inlet than to Carolina Beach Inlet, we decided to run to Masonboro to get back inside because headway into the wind was painful and slow.

After making it back inshore, it seemed as if we would have plenty of time to make the run back to Holden before the thunderstorms hit, and we would have made it had the Cape Fear not been so angry.

If you have read previous journals, you might recall that I am not too fond of my T-top, especially its builder.  As we enter the Cape Fear, I knew we were in for trouble.  The boat handles chop well, even the 3' chop in the river, but the top is too flimsy.  It gets to shaken, and leads to it breaking.  By the time we get to Southport, where we dodged a storm and ate some food at the Provision Co., we had lost our Sonar (it just died during the day), the CD player bracket had broken (along with the CD player), two welds broke, and numerous screws had fallen from places unknown.

We load back into the boat after the weather cleared and move to Southport Marina where we gas up and talk to a few other fishermen about their day.  One team had claimed to lose a 30# in the Georgetown Inlet, while another team had little luck fishing R4, 30/30, and the Cabbage Patch.  Its seemed none of us had much luck.

We return to Holden, stumbling across some small-medium pogies. We pen some and grind the rest, rinse the boat, and tighten down the screws that didn't fall out, and prepare for day two.

June 15, 2002

We awake with a little less enthusiasm; two-day tournaments are tough.  We pick up our bait and head to the Southport checkout.

We had three basic plans.

1.To check out and fish an inlet for 45 minutes with the bait penned from yesterday, load up with fresh bait once it had been found by the hoard of boats, and then run south to Little River and try to head towards 390/390, assuming that would be as far offshore as we could get.

2.Try to beat our way towards the 30/30.

3.Or fish off the east facing beaches of Carolina and Wrightsville Beaches.

Even though we knew the weathermen called for the wind to lie down in the afternoon, we were skeptical of the accuracy of the forecast.  Determined to get somewhat offshore, we decide to head back towards Wrightsville, finding the seas off of the Cape Fear too rough.

We arrived at Carolina Beach Inlet earlier than the day before, and with our penned bait we deployed our spread hoping to have some early strikes as the day before.  There were more boats in the inlet than the previous day, but we hoped our number would be the next one called.  Thirty minutes pass without a sound, and we decide to leave the inlet and head offshore, but first a short stop for fresh bait.

One throw near the Carolina Beach pier and we had more than enough bait.  We settle in and have a peaceful ride to our little spot off of Wrightsville.  Without the sounder, we weren't real sure where our ledge was, and without a strike in forty-five minutes, we pack up and move over to the 10 Mile Rocks.  There were a few boats here, but no fish.  So we moved to Dallas Rocks.  There were a few boats here, but no fish.  So we moved to the 14 Mile Rocks.  The ride was nice, running in a large, but smooth swell.  When we arrived there, only two other boats shared our spot, but within twenty minutes, it was a group of 10.  Everyone coming in from offshore stopped to see what was going on.  The only fish we saw caught were the two sharks we found, one being a 4' Tiger.

That pushed us over the edge, so we decide to head back to the Carolina Beach Inlet, find the tideline, and catch our winner.  As we come closer to the beach, we notice that the afternoon sea breeze had created a nice chop that resembled yesterday's conditions, though not quite as bad.

Out go the baits, but we had honestly lost hope by now.  We finish the tournament without weighing a fish.  The Greater Wilmington is quickly becoming one of my least favorite tournaments; we just can't catch a fish.

We go home, back through a rough Cape Fear River, with only one Spanish and five Sharks to show for the weekend.

All we can do is see what the future holds.  Next up, the Jolly Mon.

June 10

Went out and did a little pre-fishing for the Greater Wilmington KMT and found some nice sized kings.  It looks good for the upcoming weekend.

June 2

Went looking for Spanish off of Holden Beach and found pleanty around both inlets.  Marked a lot of bait in 26' of water, and found a lot of fish.  Most were small however, with the largest about 18''.

May 27

I had heard that the weather was beautiful over the weekend, but other obligations kept me elsewhere.  I did mangage to get down to the beach Sunday night, and get out and fish late on Monday morning.  My parents had fished both Saturday and Sunday, working some nearshore reefs with no success.  They told me that it sounded as if there had no great reports over the weekend.

John Wilkins and Team Maycraft fished the Swansboro King Tournament, finding some nice sized dolphin at the Tower, but no good kings.  So I didn't know where to go.  I decided to choose the Sharkhole out of the blue, and see if we could find anything there.  We left in calm seas out to the Sharkhole, only to find it barren of any fish.  Bait over the past weekend had been located off of Bald Head, and we caugth two blues while fishing and trolled them, but had no success.  If we wanted fish to eat, we were going to have to eat the bait.

May 16

Reed and I took his girlfriend out for her first offshore experience and found all the sharks one could want, but no kings.  We started at the Lighthouse Rock and eventually moved to 445, landing 10-12 sharks missing 5 strikes, with only one strike resembling the sound of a king.  Seas were calm, with a small wind chop and the water was clear, especially at 445.  Bait was found off of Ocean Crest Pier.  All of our action came on the downriggers.

May 11

A last minute decision at 2 a.m., much too long after getting into the bottle, I decided to fish today.  We decided to fish even though the weather was predicted to be nasty, but the weatherman is never right, is he?  He was today.  After a late start, my neighbor and I sat at Yaupon in a downpour for thirty minutes until it lightened up just enough to head home.  We had one strike, but the rain on the hardtop was too loud and we didn't hear it, nor would either one of us want to leave the shelter of the cockpit to fight the fish.  I was very glad we took the Legal Ease today.

As fate would have to be, as soon as we docked the sun came out, allowing me to accomplish the many chores I had planned for the day, which I had hoped to escape while fishing.  It can be a cruel world.

May 10-11

Greg and Jeff fished the Rumph Brothers Tournament and weighed a 26.6, which nailed down 8th place overall and 2nd in the 23' and under Calcutta.  Congratulations.

May 9

Crawford and Joe fished the Same Ole area and caught 9 Dolphin, all between 15# and 35# and one whopping Yellowfin weighing 85#.

Spring Frantic Atlantic

May 4

There are times when you look back upon your decisions in life and wonder, "what the hell was I thinking?"  This past weekend was one of those times.

I finished my final exam marking the end of my first year of law school at 5 o'clock on Friday, very excited and very relieved to be done.  I had planned to fish the Frantic Atlantic, expecting to trailer my boat down to Georgetown and fish near there, but when I learned of the checkout and the expected weather conditions earlier in the week, I changed my mind.

So all I had to do was finish my exam and head straight to the bar.  That was when I made the first bad decision of the weekend.  A friend of mine from school, Greg Weathers, and his brother, Jeff, had already entered the tournament and were fishing.  He asked me to join him, and my immediate response was "no."  Well it didn't take long before the thoughts of smoker kings danced in my head (unfortunately during the exam) and the next thing I knew, I had packed my car and was headed to the beach.

I arrived in Little River a little after 10 o'clock, learning quickly that Jeff's efforts to catch bait during the afternoon proved relatively futile.  So the plan was to leave the dock around 3 a.m. and try to find some mullet.  We did leave the dock about 3 o'clock, and we did manage to net some perfect sized mullet, the only problem was we averaged only a little over one mullet per hour.  So 5:45 rolls around and we head to the checkout, still needing bait.

The tournament boat strolls up to the checkout dock shortly after 6 a.m., we hold up our number and we are off.  Jeff had informed us that though the conditions had been predicted to be horrible Friday and Saturday, he said that yesterday afternoon was not so bad.  We had two plans, a place to fish north and a place to fish south, depending on the seas.  When we hit the inlet, all three of us concluded that we no longer had any plans, because the already choppy seas had thrown out both options.

We still needed bait, we had no real decision on where we would fish, and I could tell that I was going to be very wet before 6:30 in the morning.  Greg and Jeff expected me to have the local knowledge, but all I could tell them was that I imagined that a bunch of people would fish off of Yaupon and the River Channel after the unusual early season reports of some large kings, and that there had been reports of bait off of Oak Island.  I also explained to them my hatred for beach fishing, especially this early in the year.  We also discussed the fact that the Jungle would be a manageable ride in the trough, but that the temperatures there had been the lowest around.

Our decision was to fish the Jungle, but first we decided to run south down the beach and look for some pogies.  We found none.

Time was ticking away, and we debated whether to wait and look for pogies, or press on with our few baits and hope to jig more offshore.  Greg finally made the call and we headed offshore, planning to stop at the Sherman and jig.

Jeff's boat is a 23' Hydra Sports Vector Series with twin 150s, and rode very well considering the conditions, but I quickly began to question our decision to fish offshore when I looked over at a 31' Fountain which almost bucked a fisherman off the boat in the increasing seas.  I will say that after coming within inches of being thrown overboard, that guy was a trooper.  He just went to the back of the boat, put on a life jacket, and resumed jigging.  After about 15 minutes with no real success, we made the second bad decision, and continued to head offshore.

Some time later we arrived at the Jungle, finding it barren, cold, and increasingly nasty.  After a tiring previous day, topped by the lack of sleep during the night, I thought I would lay down for a few minutes in the bow.  That was my third mistake.  Two minutes of riding the 6-8 foot seas with the occasional 10 footers, I decided that we should trying chumming a little.

Now I haven't been sea-sick in a long time, I usually only get sick after watching someone else lose their lunch, but not today.  After a few minutes on my feet, and a half of a sandwich, I made the fourth bad decision.  I decided that I would try to lie down again.  I felt fine while standing, but it didn't take long until well, you know.

We fish for a while, the boat pointing one direction with the lines at a 90 degree angle, before long our concerns for safety began to outweigh our desire to catch fish and we decided to head inshore.

We finally arrived inside the Little River jetties and quickly cracked open a beer and weighed our options.  It was 10:30, and we could make the 11 o'clock bridge and run the ditch to Southport and fish the Channel or Yaupon, or we could cut our losses and head in for the day.  Since we were fishing on Jeff's money, we left the decision up to him.  With no hesitancy from the rest of the crew, we slowly made our way back to the marina only 5 hours after the checkout, cold, wet, and fishless.

Ending a tournament without weighing a fish is a pretty bad feeling, especially during a tournament where you expect anything over 20# would be a good fish.  Ending a tournament before noon is a bad feeling, if you don't have anything to weigh, but under these circumstances, I was very glad to end the tournament early.

I showered and went to watch the weigh-in, looking forward to actually seeing some fish, but again I was disappointed.  Only two fish were weighed, a 13.5# fish took home second, and a whopping 15# stole first.  Unbelievable.  The rest of the 77-boat fleet tied for third.

April 26 & 27

Ryan, Pudding, Tanner, and Mr. Glover fished the Masonboro Bluewater Tournament (aka The Bearded Clam Tournament) on the  Reel Therapy, looking for tuna, dolphin and wahoo, but could only find one bonito.

Day 1's plan was to fish near the Black Jack Hole of the 100/400 line, but was cut short due to rough seas 25 miles out.  They did fish momentarily, hoping to find a dolphin, wahoo or perhaps a lost tuna, but only managed to bag a bonito.

Day 2 was no better, as the women decided that it would be too rough to even attempt to fish, so they stayed at home.

Did hear that the largest tuna came from the Black Jack Hole on the second day, weighing 93#.  I believe 15 of 20 boats weighed in.  I'll update if I get more information.

April 18

Went with Greg and his brother Jeff on their boat out of Georgetown to the Georgetown Hole.  We left the dock shortly after 2 a.m., and were in the stream by 6 a.m.  When we left in was dead calm.  The first 40 miles were smooth, and then a nice breeze kicked up and remained with us all day creating a small chop.

A Blackfin Tuna hit the fist line out just after 6.  With that early strike our anticipation was high.  We were proud of our decision to stay up all night with no sleep to get out early for the morning bite.  That anticipation faded away as did the morning since our next strike didn't come for some three hours later.  Finally the reel screams again, this time a medium Yellowfin.  After searching for some sort of temperature break, weed line, bait, or any sign of life, we decided to head in and do a little bottom fishing.

We tried a couple of spots and caught a few Red Porgies, Lizardfish, Black Sea Bass, Grouper, and a couple of unidentified species.  It was nice to catch some fish, but I have learned that I'm not very lucky at bottom fishing, since Greg and Jeff seemed to catch much more than me.

We headed back to the hill, hoping to have caught more, but happy we caught something.  The water is really warm in the stream now, which might explain the lack of tuna.  Oh well, maybe next time.

April 14

Took the Legal Ease on her first fishing trip and had great success.  We left the dock a little after 8 o'clock and headed out of Lockwood Folly towards Frying Pan Tower.  The seas were a rolling 3-4 foot swell and calm.  Once I got my spread set, it was non-stop action.  Two minutes after the last rod was set in the rod holder, the long-line screamed.  The first fish was lucky; he got away, but as I brought that line in and drifted another back, bam another fish.  We tried to clear some of the lines, but before we could we had a triple hookup.  We landed the fish and could only manage to keep two lines in the water the rest of the day.  We caught somewhere close to 10 kings, missing at least twice as many strikes, the largest falling into the mid to high teens, a houndfish that put on a great show, and a pink snapper.  All in all, a great and tiring day on the water.  Can't wait to get out there again.

Another report from this Sunday came from Crawford and Joe.  They boated a couple of Blackfin Tuna, some large Yellofins, and a monster Wahoo, which broke the scale somewhere over 90#s!  I believe they were fishing the Same Ole area.

April 13

Headed out to the Liberty Ship on Brian's new boat for its first fishing trip looking for some Bonito.  The seas were pretty rough, and unfortunately Tanner's dad landed hard on the deck, injuring his back and ankle.  He informed us that he would be all right, and to go one and fish, but the pain is his face and the groans he made with every wake told us that we would be heading straight back to the dock.  The quote of the day from Mr. Tanner came when I asked him if he was going to go see a doctor, his reply, "do I have woman or child written on my forehead?"  I believe he had already prescribed himself a bottle of Jim Beam and an Advil.  Hopefully he will be able to walk again in a few days.

March 29

Crawford went out again today with Joe, and tried their luck at the Same Ole.  Today they boated two medium Yellowfin, one King in the 20# range, and a 30#ish Wahoo.

March 24

Greg Weathers and his brother went out on their 23' Hydra Sports, the Triple Gobble, to the Georgetown Hole and found a 70-72* temperature break with scattered weed.  They boated three nice Yellowfin ranging from 55-65#, but missed six others.

March 23

Crawford McKeithan was the first person to get out to the stream this year.  He went on the Scott Free, a 31' Cabo, captained by Joe McLeod, and headed to the Same Ole.  They managed to catch nine Yellowfin, averaging 30# with the largest being 60#, and one Bluefin estimated at 400#.