Hunt for BFT Hatteras NC 3-27-2009 on the Godspeed "kils trip"

[NJNickA]

OK, here it is, this is the 2nd time I had to write this as the first time I erased it by mistake. I got a call from Kilsong last minute and told me the BFT’s are still hanging off Hataras NC and of course I had to get in on it! I met up with Kil and crew on Thursday at 6:00pm. I hoped in the car with Ryan and we began our long journey to the south in search for large BFT’s on jigs. The whole 10hr ride down it rained and once we got into NC we were greeted by the state troopers, I thought to myself “this trip is already starting off on the right foot!”
We reached the marina around 5:30am, met up with Dave and Bullhead from the Helen H and started to load our gear onto the 58ft boat Godspeed. We steamed off and headed to the inlet, once I got a view of it I thought our day was over!! It was incredibly rough and the coast guard patrolled it. The captain cautiously maneuvered the boat through the HUGE breakers, once we got a mile out it started to lie down and off we went to the deep.

When we arrived in the zone the captain wanted to troll and try to locate the fish, within 30 minutes we had our first BFT hooked up. We got him to the boat and iced him down, and then we started to jig. We all started jigging and immediately we all hooked up, Dave was the only one to stay tight, he fought the fish for a while and we stopped jigging so he can maneuver around the cockpit. After he landed the fish we again went on the troll to find the marks. We started jigging again and we all got hooked up again, Ryan’s ocean jigger got spooled on a big fish, the reel actually started smoking and smelled like it burnt up!! Dave again came tight and started fighting our 3rd tuna of the day. He had help from bullhead and landed the fish.

Now its mid day and I have tried everything in my arsenal, diamond jigs were the only jigs to get hits. We went back on the troll again and found some great marks, we started jigging and Bullhead hooks up this time, IT’S A BIG FISH! He fought it for over an hour and a half, again we stopped jigging to give him room. He landed the fish 4th of the day and the weather started looking pretty bad and the Capt. decided to start making the long ride home.

All in all it was a great day with some excellent fishermen and new friends. The only down side was I wish I was able to jig more, I only jigged about an hour as we were being courteous to the other guys fighting the fish. So I had 2 dropped fish “It happens to us all sooner or later, it just wasn’t my day” Ryan had 4 dropped/lost, Bullhead had 1 and Dave had 2. The capt and mate of the Godspeed were GREAT guys I would recommend fishing with them.
These fish were BIG!! I can’t wait for them to be up north as that ride t NC was a killer and not sleeping for 2 days was rough, I still recouping…
Here are some pics from the day

[swell rider]

Glad you guys had a good trip, Dave and Jeff are great guys and were down to do alittle grouper fishing with me but the weather to the south just plain sucked but it's great to see the boys were able to dig in..Ken

[juicyhook]

Nice job guys, those are some nice looking fish, soon it will be our turns.

Got to love Hatteras inlet see can be a monster, looks fun. thanks god for flare..

[Anders]

awesome trip guys, congrats on a nice BFT