Offshore NC Report---Far Out Shootout CHAMPIONS!!

**Squid** · 05-20-2007 10:48 AM

Sorry for the much delayed report here.....didn't want to put it up any sooner fearing the dreaded ginx tournament ginx.

I fished the Far Out Shootout Tournament out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center this week with some very good friends of mine, Jeremy and Jason Foster on their boat "The Jobsite", a 33ft. Palmetto Custom. We fished our first day out of two on Tuesday, May 15 since we were trying to avoid the weekends at all costs. Over the past several weeks, I've consistantly caught fish on some bottom near the Same Ol' and with some great looking water shaping up on top of our area (and a very successful trip from a friend to the spot on Saturday) the boys trailered the boat up to Wilmington and I met them at the ramp. After an unexpected smooth ride out, we arrive at 7:40 am. Can't put lines in until 8:00 am so we made sure everything was right, rode around a bit and found some great bait marks on the ledges. As we're setting the spread, two mahis around 15 lbs. Putting lines back out and the shotgun gets destroyed. Fought the fish for 20 minutes before icing our first yellowfin of the day---decent fish aroudn 50 lbs. After a few more mahis (go figure) the short rigger goes off and the fish's head comes out of the water. We knew this was the mahi that we needed to go with the yellowfin. (As a side note, the way this tournament works is that you take the combined weight of your biggest tuna, dolphin, and wahoo.) Takes about 15 minutes before we ice this 40 lb. mahi. OK....2 down and all we need is a wahoo. And it's only 9:30am!!

For the next couple hours it was mahi this and mahi that....can't keep them off the lines. Around 12:00 the long rigger pops and gets dumped. Hoping for a wahoo, however the tell tale line angle gave the tuna fish away. This one is fighting harder than the first and when I saw color, it was definitely bigger than the first. When he gets to the boat, he's still a little green. I grab the wire (yeah, it was on a wahoo bait), and ease him up. As I'm reaching for the gaff he kicks and goes under the boat. Apparently a kink in the wire grabbed on the boat and the #8 wire parted. To say I was devasted was an understatement. This fish was around 70 and I knew I had just cost us the tournament. Oh well, nobody's fault and nothing we could do except go get another one. Put them back out as the tuna fish are airing out all around us with some VERY nice fish in the area. (We saw several that were 70+ and some that I would put in the 90# category. A few days prior, some of these fish were caught by one of the charter boats.) Around 1:00 we finally get the wahoo bite---not a big fish but around 20 lbs. So now we're sitting pretty---50 lb. tuna, 40 lb. mahi, and 20 lb. wahoo. Lines out at 4:00pm and we make the 70+ mile run to Ocean Isle. The current leader was at 100 lbs so we knew we had that beat. Yellowfin ended up weighing 48.5 lbs, the mahi weighed 41.8 and the wahoo was 21.3 lbs. for a 111.6 lb total and the lead!

With the weather shaping up to be a bit bumpy for the next several days, we opted to fish the following day as well, Wednesday. Needing to upgrade our wahoo, we decided to stay to the south and fish the 100/400, Blackjack Hole, and Steeples area since the wahoo bite has been decent in the area for quite some time. Arrive a few minutes after 8:00am and from lines in it was complete mahi destruction. Had 12 gaffers before 10:00am and we were trying our hardest to get away from the damn things. Marked a ton of bait in the area along with a nice rip. Pulled another tuna fish off the bait but not bigger than the first that we've already weighed. This one was around 40 lbs and came off the planer bait. The mahi's got worse and worse throughout the day. Around lunch I was bet by Jason that I couldn't catch one on a Sundrop can. Well, I ran a piece of wire through the can, put an egg sinker on the end (where you drink from), and twisted a hook onto the rig. Put it on the flat line and within seconds 2 fish piled on it! Yep, you read it right---caught one on a Sundrop can! To say it was out of control wouldn't be doing it justice. Long story short....major blood bath however none of our fish bettered what we had the first day.

Final total for 2 days of fishing---2 tunas, 2 wahoos, and 50+ mahi's (all gaffers).

So there we were.....done with our two days of fishing, sitting in the lead, and nervous as hell for several more days. Sweating bullets all the time thinking that we wouldn't hold up. We dodged a major bullet on Wednesday as one boat missed us by 0.9 lbs! When the dust had settled on Saturday evening, we remained at the top and captured our first tournament win and pocketed $11,000+!!