Roanoke report

Sounds like the lower Roanoke is heating up. Capt. Mitch Blake sent this photo of a popper-caught Roanoke striped bass.

sailfish pics

Welcome to Richmond

If you're in the neighborhood, come by and check us out. Sailfish pics coming up.....

Going where we need to get them

I heard that another boat was charging a fuel surcharge of $350 to their customers in order to go to the place that we found the bite yesterday. Yeah, it's a long ways away, but James and crew are tired of not seeing the fish that we know are out there. We finally started trolling home at 60 miles and added a couple more sails to our talley on the way in.We ended up having a double digit days, a dorado and a great blue marlin bite. James was taking a leak down below and Berto was up top when a big blue crashed the left teaser. I got out the pitch bait on the 50 just in time to see him crash the right teaser. James comes out of the head and takes the teaser rod which I already had in gear, pulling the teaser to my marlin bait that we dropping back into position. I saw a fish pop up on my mackeral so I dumped it, couple seconds and engaged....nothing, but bam, she came back for it, so this time I let her have it, engage and we're tight. Get everything clear and backing down when a sailfish jumps on the end of the line......a sailfish stole my bait from the marlin. We catch the sail and James says that there are 4 more sails swimming around up ahead. We put out the dredge and james is letting out his teaser when the marlin pulls off the dredge and pounces on his teaser, pulling it out of his hands......then we saw her no more.

hero or zero

That's what we went for and that's what we got. It was an interesting week. First day of practice we find the mother load, catching 9 sails in jut a couple of hours. Day 1 it seemed like we were out to lunch, just not getting the bites that we needed. Thanks to our new teammate for this tournament, Skip Smith, we made some adjustments that made a lot of sense. Day 2, we were getting the bites to be competitive, but couldn't convert enough of them into releases. On Day 3, to have a chance, we needed a couple of marlin bites and went looking for them, but just didn't find them.

I can't thank enough the weatlh of knowledge that Skip shared with us through the week. Although our performance in this series was far from where we need to be as a tournament boat, we have learned a lot and are better fishemen because of it. Look out in Papagayo in June.....

Day 2

Moved up a couple rungs on the ladder today, but no where near the top. Caught 6 for 13 today, at least we were getting enough bites to be competitive with the daily winner who had 9 sails and a marlin. Got a good feeling about tomorrow.....

Day 1

Even though our numbers weren't that good, we didn't have any flagrant screw-ups. Caught 8 for 18. Two jumped off after several jumps....one of those I had wound in 3/4 of the spool to watch the fish jump off at the transom before we got the release. Had a couple of bites that we maybe should have caught and 6 "swings and a miss".....a quick bite from the sailfish but they dropped the bait.

See what happens tomorrow......we've got a lot of ground to make up

wish us luck

Practice day today, starting Leg 2 of the Los Suenos Billfish Series tomorrow. Wish us luck and keep an eye on the fishing reports to see how we are doing.......got to be better than the last tourney.

lots of bucktails and flies

are getting tied up here in NJ. Good show, meeting a lot of people and tying a lot of cobia jigs and striper flies. Lots of Bass Fishermen up here.......and I don't mean the kind of bass fishermen with glitter in their boat gelcoat. When I got here a guy told me that he caught a 25 pound bass yesterday.....I told him that was a world record.....not really, their bass have stripes.

Weldon fishing

PLENTY of shad at Weldon. Anna and I stopped in and fished for an hour off the bank, caught over 30, but only 2 roes and a white perch. Things are going to be red hot by the time I get settled in for the stripers in a few weeks. Still a handful of openings for Roanoke stripers and May/June cobia......I recommend making some reservations now.

For those of you venturing up the river to Weldon, here are a couple of very helpful websites....

For water level forecasts:
http://www.dom.com/about/stations/hydro/roanoke-rapids/projected-flow-releases.jsp

For the history of water levels over the past few days:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nc/nwis/uv/?site_no=02080500&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060

trouts

Looks like there is a good sign of sub-legal trout, won't be long before they are keepers with the early spring. Capt. Ray had a good day yesterday with a nice limit, inluding a 5 pounder. He had good success by trailoring to two different creeks off the Neuse, caught trout in both places, plus a couple stripers and a catfish.

Capt. Greg burned up the stripers out of his new bay boat up the river out of New Bern.

I hear that Capt. Gary has been getting enough of what he needs, that he will not be making the trip up to the Roanoke this year, plenty of stripers in the Neuse.

In Costa Rica....

......14 sails and 3 big dolphin yesterday

Overnighter

Thought I would share this report from some friends on the Scatterbrain who just got back from an overnight marlin adventure...

Well here's the way I saw it: We left out of Los Suenos at 6PM Sunday on the 54 ft. Hatteras "Scatterbrain" with a bunch of pizzas from Rioasis, 2 big lasagnas and about 10 cases of beer. Capt. Ian, Capt. Marvin, mate Alex, Moonpie, Graham, Schuyler, Big Brian and I. We are heading for a seamount 130 miles to the south, some 80 miles offshore. We have a fresh report of a good blue marlin bite going on and we are all fired up. 10 knot cruise till 5AM then we pick up and run the last 20 miles. A big lightning storm at 2:30AM wakes me up I and spend the rest of the night on the bridge with Capt. Ian watching the show. Thankfully the squall pushes just offshore of us and we don't have to run through it. Lines in a little after 6AM. First fish that comes is a blue one, get the bite on a live bonito but it doesn't come tight. It's 6:45 AM. Next 2 blue ones just window shopped. 4th one ate a bonito but didn't come tight. 0-4 by 11AM. Then a 2+ hour lull with no raises. (Marlin raises that is, we are steady picking off sailfish all day). Great morning full of action but we are marlin-less and getting a little nervous. All hell breaks loose around 1:30PM. We start catching some small yellowfins on the planers. Put a yellowfin out. It lasts about 30 seconds before a blue about 200lbs crushes it. We come tight with that one and Moonpie goes on him and releases it in short order. Catch a couple more yellowfins, put them out. It's not long before a nice blue shows up on the short left teaser. A yellowfin is cranked up to him and he crushes it so hard that blood sprays 10 feet in every direction. Graham fights this 300 pounder for 20 minutes and it puts on quite a show before it is successfully released. Put the spread back out and 2 blue ones come in red hot shortly thereafter... and we hook both of them. One about 225, one about 375. I catch the small one sitting in the chair, big Brian beats the big one down stand-up in about 10 minutes. Double header blue marlin!! We are now 4 -8 for the day on blue ones. While we are fighting these fish an unfortunate school of bonitos is getting crushed by at least 2 big blue ones that are ripping thru them not 150 yards off our starboard. We put the stuff back out as soon as those 2 are released and instantly another one comes piling in all lit up. He goes straight for the lure we have right down the middle. He crushes it and launches himself into the air. He is horizontal to the water and 5 feet up, all 400+ pounds of him. One of the coolest things I have ever seen. Everything comes unglued when he hits the water and he's gone. We are still screaming and yelling from that sight when a different one shows up on the short left. ...#10 for the day, it is red hot and a we get the bite but no love. It's now 3:30 and we have gone 4 for 6 on blue marlin in the past 2 hours, and probably 4 sailfish in there too. Things calm down until 5pm when something big eats a yellowfin. We don't see the fish on the bite, and it never jumps. Schuyler is up and an hour later the leader parts. I got a 5 second look at it while it was 30 feet down straight below the boat, and it was mighty big and blue and shiny. I think that was the man, but we will never know. Total for the day: 4 for 10 on blue marlin, 11-17 on sailfish. At dark we settle down for pizza and lasagna, then set up for a night of swordfishing. Jigging for squid results in no squid for us, rats. We catch literally dozens of bonito vertical jigging. Send 1 of them out on a balloon rig with a flasher... about 1 AM we get a good bite but miss it. It is a calm night on the Pacific and everyone gets some good rest. Lines back in at 5:30 AM. First blue one comes in at 6AM. We get the bite but no hook-up. Then 3 sails. We need to leave at 8AM to start heading back. At 7:40AM another blue one comes in but wont eat. Nobody is pleased to crank in the stuff and start the troll back... we want another afternoon out there! We put out a Black Bart style lure and 2 Moldcraft Wide Ranges and 4 teasers and start the 10knot troll back home. After a couple hours we pick up and run to the drop straight off Cano Island. We work straight up that edge and sure enough a blue one piles on to the blue and white moldcraft, we get the bite but it pulls the hook. An hour later, a big shadow shows up under the black bart. Kaboom, big hole, bent pole. Schuyler catches this 300 pounder. Put the stuff back out and 30 minutes later the green moldcraft gets crushed. Moonpie bumrushes the rod and releases this 200 pounder and it is time to pick up and run the rest of the way in. We go 2 for 5 on blue ones for the day and 6 for 8 on sails. We finish the 2 day trip at 6 for 15 on blue marlin, with 11 bites, and 17 for 25 on sailfish. Helluva trip!!!!!!!!!!!

on the road

Greensboro, Raleigh, DC last week. Savannah, Florence, Charleston this week. New Jersey next week, then back to CR before ending up in Richmond. Better get your dates booked for Costa Rica 2013 and NC fishing this year.

Here are a few pics from a quick trip with Wayne and Pat before hitting the road last week. Also some Costa Rica pics left on my camera....