Had an itch for some blue water so we strached it, till it was raw!
Left greenback aboard the TOPLESS at 7am friday heading south to the swirl of warm water off Oregon Inlet in hopes of finding a bluefin. Hit the edge of the water around 1:00, 51 to 64 deg break, trolled all the way across it without a bite! Found the two tones and bait, but still nada. So, Plan B, hit the edge of the stream overboard about 12 miles away. Hit the edge and it was pretty rough. Got 1 gaffer on the troll south down to the point off Hatteras. The day was looking pretty bleak up to this point. Setup at night to drift across the point, current was doing at least 2 knots, shark baits were draggin along the top and my sword bait was struggling to get down with a lot of lead. This is where the fun started. Steady bites all night, released a est. 175lb Shark of some type, looked like a dusky, but they all kinda look like duskys??? every 45 mins a rod would go off. Pulled 2 hooks on the sword rig!!! errr!
Then at 12:00 shark rod goes off, and really takes off. Now this rig is a 20/o Circle hook with HEAVY cable, a really potent piece of riggin hardware. Tighten up the drag and fish on! We have him hooked up to an 80 with 250 yards of heavy braid and mono below. Before I could do much the damn thing had spooled me of braid and was steady taking out line. Down to half a spool. Slick had the boat fired up and we were backin down through rough ass seas with water flying everwhere. You would have thought we had a grander hooked up in the big rock or something the way we had to chase this darn fish. The fish would come up and you could hear it jump and splash and then sound again. I just knew I was hooked up to a 400lb mako or some kinda beast of the ocean. I have never felt anything with so much power on the other end of a rod and reel. He had me, I didnt have him. This fish was doing what he pleased, Up to the top then sounding down cutting back and forth the whole time. We got him close a few times but just outside the light we couldnt see what we had and it would jump and sound again. Mike Tyson couldnt have beat me worse than this fish was doing. 40 mins into it I start going above stike on the reel, somethings gotta give, we are wet and wore out and this damn fish hasent lost a bit of power. More drag, Ive got the braid back at this point and am really putting some pressure on. Then, the fish came up beside the boat in the lights this time, Splashed and thrashed and dove again.
There was a period of silence, crickets, crickets...
That was a damn porpoise!!!! Hooked in the corner of the mouth with the circle hook, WTF! ate a giant chunk of bluefish! Never have we seen this happen or even heard about it for that matter. What do we do now??? So now we had the fish, well, mammal, close to the boat. We have got to get this critter off the rod asap for its sake. (notice to PETA people reading this, we did all we could) I slam the reel Max drag and hold the spool with a glove, he was still taking it, but not for long. he turned and ran right up to the boat, leader outa the water, Full pressure on him. This was out chance to cut him off as close as were gonna get, and we did. He took off, much happier than he was during the previous hour. None of us could believe it, he ate a cable shark rig. I would have never guessed thats what I was fighing the whole time. Tired and woreout at 1:30, we didnt even put a rod back in the water that night...
Up at Daybreak started trolling home, Found a weedline on the edge of the stream and started working it offshore to no mans land. It was game on on the dolphin. Had 2 bulls that went 31 and 27 lbs and a dozen other gaffers over 10lbs. We could have worked that line forever it seemed like. It held nothing but dolphin though, I kept waiting for a hoo or a big blue to crash in but it never happened. We pulled lines at 10:30 and pointed toward home 130 miles away. It was smooth sailing with a tailwind and made it home for supper.
I think that trip should cure the itch for a few weeks at least.
Glad to hear Perry getting out.... Porpoise? His buddy Curt wasn't along was he? He has a bad habit of catching turtes with me...
Nice report and keep em comming!
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