......it's also official that the huge mass of cobia being caught on the northern Outer Banks and in Virginia have passed us by, coming ashore to the north of us, not even leaving us a few crumbs. 

it's official

Capt. Wade Fickling and  The General, along with Joey Massey from Lasceration Lures caught this 600 pounder over the weekend to win the Swansboro Rotary Tournament.    That's good for 6 figures.

So proud of Thomas, Wade's boy, for catching the mackeral that teased up that beast.

aj fishing with Capt. Greg......and a cobia

released with transmitter and tag.

Report from yesterday

1 short cobia on the shoals, 4 keeper gags and about 20 snappas up to 20 pounds….and a sailfish, yup a sailfish.  I hooked my first Atlantic sailfiish while jigging up greenies in 55 ft of water.   I could not believe what I was looking at, put a greenie on a hook and it was immediately inhaled.   We got the quick release, but lost the fish after a very quick run and jump.   Very cool nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Capt. Greg has informed me that the summer time trout bite is very, very good with plenty of keepers.

5/20 report

a little dorado action for Greg today.  For us it was a nice gag, some aj's, big snappa and a couple of short cobia before the afternoon blow picked up.

No big showing of cobias down here, hopefully a little wave will pass by, in the meantime, there is pulledge available.

Nice Un

pics from our nearshour mixed bag

 

 

spawning stripers and cobia

The stripers have not been cooperative the past couple of days, Justin has only caught about 100  on his last two trips combined......slow for the Roanoke, but a great day on the water in most places.
After this full moon, they should go back on the bite, but with dropping water levels, their trip down river is not far away.

Meanwhile on the coast, we are picking away at the cobia, seeing one for about every 10 miles of looking, so it ain't red hot but we've been getting a couple of keepers each day.   Not killing them, but tagging with transmitters and $200 red tags, then letting them go.  Check it out:

Report from the beach

Roanoke still going off.

No cobia yesterday for me, did get a little guy a couple of days ago on a short trip.
We did catch a box full of fish yesterday and at least 10 different species:
gag grouper, black sea bass, calico bass, bluefish, spanish and king mackeral,  a variety of sharks and some bonafide gigantic American red snappas.

Not sure if I posted this pic from the Roanoke, it's been a couple of weeks, so maybe the pain has eased.

Justin pics from yesterday

hope to have some cobia pics for you shortly.   Had my chance yesterday and I'll leave it at that.   Nice to see a pair of keepers within 10 minutes of leaving the inlet on the shake down cruise.  Now we're just waiting for our window. 

Hard to leave these on top water.   Anyone who wants some of that action, we are still in position with boats at the ready on the "island" in Weldon. 

Single, barbless hook on a zara spook and catching 100 in an afternoon or morning.  How many bites is that? 

triple digits

Took Justin 2 hours to reacch triple digits of stripers all on top water.   This is far from over.

Pic from Greg's Friday trip:

 

 

cobia time

We left some boats up on the Roanoke and are in position to run a quick trip up there.   The fishing is far from over, but the cobia have showed on the coast and we like that also!

If you want some stripers, it'ss not too late.

Attached are some pics from Greg's "last" trip yesterday

Big holes in the water

Not as big as a blue marlin, but put it all in perspecitve.   The last few days have pretty much been exclusively  top water.   A striper like this leaves a big hole in the water where a zara spook once was

2 for 5 blue marlin

I have not gotten the full details but a quick overnighter to the seamounts yielded 2 blue marlin releases out of 5 bites a few sails and a tuna well over 200 pounds that was on the leader but "released" after 2 1/2 hours. 

First seamount trip of the season

They should be getting back tonight.  Report to follow.

Last remaining openings during the "peak" seamount season:

July 9-14
July 20-26 reserved, not confirmed
Aug. 1-4
Aug. 10-15  reserved, not confirmed
Aug. 17-21

Capt. Justin

with his third trip into triple digits for the day.  

topwater bites with Capt. Greg

These leave some pretty big holes in the water.

dropping water and cobia at the coast

when the water dropped the shad had nowhere to go.   Truly epic top water action all day long.....if you were in the right spot, which the 4 boats we had fishing for Down East today were in the right spot.   I even tied up to the back of Greg's boat for a couple of hours. 

Cobia also showing at the Crystal Coast, but this is hard to leave.   Trying to post some videos. 

top water and fly openings

We have some guides available for a bait trip.   $400 and you buy the bait!    Could get expensive as Greg went through 10 dozen at $10/dozen  in 2 hours yesterday.  yes, when you run out of bait you can fish wtih jigs or go buy more bait.

I have yet to put a minna on a hook and I do not plan to fix my live well.  Today, for 3 hours, by ourselves we watched stripers terrorize shad on the surface.   Quite the show, the stripers would run them on the shoreline to 5 waiting blue herons.   Epic topwater and fly.  If anyone is interested in that, I am avaialble for a few days this week for 3/4 days for $600.    if the topwater doesn't happen, the fly rod bite is truly incredible with expectations of a bite almost every cast.

Last day of keeper season

Horray!!!   Bring out the fly rods and top water. 

2nd place, bears, trout and stripers

Looks like the Frenzy got on them today, not sure what happend with the Dragin Fly, but we needed to catch 5 sails today for the win, and only landed two.....unless they missed one on the radio or something, but it looks like we are good for 2nd place for the 2nd or 3rd time in the Offshore World Championship.   Really proud of the guys, that is a tournament with the best of the best charter boats in Costa Rica.

Some pics of my trip to the mountains and me stalking a bear.  Trout in the swimming hole and yes, there are plenty of stripers, the best of it is on the fly.

still no bait

My first day back on the river after a week off, fishing with a couple of junior anglers, I thought that I was going to have to break down and buy some bait, but boy o boy, when we found them.  Wow!  Red hot jig fishing in the morning, fly fishing for them in the afternoon with a different crowd. 

They are about to go top water, 64.18 degrees. 

Meanwhile, check out what is going on in Costa Rica, from the news release yesterday: 

QUEPOS, Costa Rica. (Tuesday, April 30, 2019) — Forty-five teams of champion saltwater anglers released 274 billfish on Monday, day one of the 2019 Costa Offshore World Championship. The waters off of Quepos, Costa Rica were hot and plentiful, a welcome sign on day one of four days of fishing. 

"....Team Oregon Tuna Classic (USA) completed the day in first place with 3,500 points from one blue marlin (500 points) and 15 sailfish (200 points) releases.....The team fished aboard Dragin Fly, a 42-foot Maverick yacht, captained by James Smith."

https://mailchi.mp/8f0046ffe443/news-worlds-top-anglers-gather-in-costa-rica-for2017-lucas-oil-offshore-world-championship-1748097?e=85090b9f15