Fishing with Capt. Tom

George,

We had a great time.  The albies were hard to find but Tom found enough of them for us all to catch at least one and my oldest, Reid, caught one on the fly.....mission accomplished.  We moved into the inlet and caught trout at the end of Shackleford Banks.  We put a few in the cooler for dinner and released the rest.  After we had had enough of that, we headed back out to look for albies again and went to the hook.  Nothing happening there.  Went across the shoals to the east side and stopped a couple of places and could have caught all the blue fish we wanted.  Rods bent again.  James, my 16 year old, hooked a pretty good sized shark and got him to the surface.  Pretty cool stuff.  We headed back towards the hook and Beaufort inlet looking for birds and busting albies and just did not see anything happening.  The crew had enough wind, fish and, fun and we were done.

Tom was a terrific guide.  He kept us busy with bent rods and never made any of us novices seem stupid about what we were doing.  Always very positive coaching my boys and helping them and me be better fisherman.  He was great to be around.  Reid and he talked a lot about fly fishing and Colorado which is where Reid is in school.  I asked the boys after the trip and they said that they really liked being on the boat with Tom.

Tom cleaned our trout at the end of the day and we departed.  Beautiful day, bent rods, accomplished our mission of catching one on the fly and I got to spend time with my two sons and an appreciative guide who made us feel as welcome as anyone could.  Great trip!!

Tom has my recommendation.

Walter

 

Trout Question

Jack,

For about  $500 you could learn a world about trout fishing by getting with one of our guides for a day.

To specifically answer your question about my favorite Gulp! baits.   I like a 3 inch or 4 inch Gulp shrimp on 3/8 oz jig head.  Rig it straight, have whoever sells it to you show you how.   The neat thing about the gulp is that they will hit it while sitting on the bottom.   Don’t fish it too fast, give it a good jerk , let it sit a second and jerk it again.   Cast across the current, if a lot, and fish it until it gets back behind the boat, by then the current is lifting it off the bottom and you won’t get any bites but bluefish, which are indicated by returning with a half a gulp instead of a whole gulp on your hook.   If there are plenty of trout around, they’ll eat that also so throw it back out there, they cost about a buck a piece.

If you are catching bluefish, you are fishing too fast.  Jerk more and reel less

How’s that for a 30 second seminar?

Take care,

George

If Jack only knew that I was no trout fisherman.........but there are enough trout around that I am even catching them, I mean really catching them, some nice 'uns also.   Hope we can keep the hard freezes away, because we are poised to have some world class inshore fishing the next couple of years. 

Pic from my 30 minute efforts yesterday afternoon, burned about a cup of gas. 

My day today

We didn't mess with the kings, but did dig up some nice groupers, a cobia, big American red snapper and a bucket of bass and triggers.  We came back through the hook and stopped in the middle marshes to add a couple of limits of trout with about a hundred throw backs.   Very mixed bag of fish and good eating.....except the cobia and snapper which were released.

George

One boat, two days, 25 blue marlin releases

Dragin Fly just got back from two days at the seamounts.   Caught 25 blue marlin, they raised 48.   Also 1 for 3 on striped marlin.   A couple of dorado and a buttload of tunas.

seamount trip

Seamounts are still firing off, James saw over 30 blue marlin today, caught 14.

40# kings and groupers half as big

Really good quick trip.  We couldn't find anything but giant menhaden, well over a foot long for bait.   Big baits catch big fish.   One of several kings, the biggest 40 pounds and our 3 keeper groupers were all over 15 pounds, the biggest over 20.  We released several that were double digit sized, then of course they went back to the bottom and told the others, the bite was over.

Ray ain't no photographer

But you can still tell the size of this albie.

"My crowd didn't want to deal with the wind. So the wife and I went . It was reel good big albies all ya wanted. Pic is blurry."   -----Capt. Ray 

Fishing with dad

 

A lot of this going on with Capt. Mitch

They're thick enough, I'm even catching 'em and I ain't no trout fisherman.   Good in the creeks, good in the ICW, good at the beach.    Albies are still going off and the kings are just offshore.    Weekends are pretty busy but most of the guides have scattered openings during the week.   Give us a ring and we'll try and get you out there.

Also a note that Capt. James Smith of the Dragin Fly will be at the Charlotte Saltwater Fishing Club on Nov. 22.   From there, he'll be coming to MHC for Thanksgiving weekend.

another couple of EPIC albie days

 

EPIC

You know what that means.   If you ever wanted to catch an albie on the fly, this has been the year.  With water temps where they are and the amount of bait in the ocean, this is going to last a while.

Trout, yup, got them too.

Kings, like you've never seen.

Bottom fishing, ain't bad.

Wahoos, you betcha.

Send me an e mail, we'll get you rigged up.

Oh, and if you are thinking about big drum, there are some of them on the east beach, but you know the most consistent time to catch them, August/September, and we are about booked up for 2017 so shoot me an e mail for your prefered dates.

Capt. James from the Dragin Fly to be in Charlotte

Capt. James from the Dragin Fly is scheduled to be the guest speaker at the Charlotte Sportsfishing Club Tuesday November 22 at Jonathan’s Restaurant, 10630 Independence Point Parkway, Matthews NC at 7:00 pm