Oregon Inlet to Hatteras And Back…June 11-12, 2010

[offshore]

Oregon Inlet to Hatteras And Back…June 11-12, 2010

Day One:
Had a great trip over the weekend!! My buddy Josh and I decided to do something a little different. A good friend, Alan owner of SportTeaser Reels was staying with his family in Hatteras for a week and offered us a room if we wanted to come down. We accepted his gracious offer packed up the boat and decided to fish down to Hatteras from Oregon Inlet to do some serious bill fishing. We left the Slip at Broad Creek Marina around 4:45 am and not a minute too soon. As we went under the Oregon Inlet Bridge we could see the fog starting to roll in. As Soon as we made the turn south past the bar heading south it was 45 miles of running by radar through some pretty thick fog.
We arrived at the 290 line put lines in and within 30 minutes had a nice 40+ YFT slam
a orange and black Moldcraft chugger. After a 10 minute fight with Josh in the harness he was put on ice and a nice bonus. At the end of the fight while still moving about 4 knts a small blue marlin crashed the center rigger which was dragging a Carolina Gentleman lure with a horse ballyhoo. That was short lived after he shook and threw the lure while coming at the boat. Not ten minutes later after regrouping and putting lines back in the water we were about 100yds behind another boat when they hooked up a really nice Blue marlin. This guy went ballistic. Josh was lucky enough to have his camera ready and snapped the shot below right after the hookup.
Things were pretty quite for a few hours with only a dolphin put in the box. The weather started to kick up a little but we continued on dragging bait and finally about 3:00pm we had a white come into the spread and hound dogged a Seastar Ballyhoo combination knocking it out of the outrigger clip then dropping the lure. Josh immediately dropped the reel into free spool and the White picked up the bait turned away from the boat. Josh gave a four count and engaged the drag and the fight was on. In short order the White was brought to the side of the boat for the release. This was a great way to end the day and we headed to Hatteras Landing where Alan was there waiting for us at the slip. Listening to the radio during the day it seemed that there were 8-12 bill fish hookups in the area we were fishing.

Day Two:

With The weather shaping up nicely for the second morning we departed Hatteras Landing around 5pm and made the trip back to where we left off the day before. We were the second boat to the area and worked the waters heading on a northerly track and found a nice temp break and killer weed line. We managed to pull a few nice gaffer dolphins off the weed line but decided to move off the line in search of billfish. By this time there were ten or so boats parked on the weed line bailing all the dolphin they could hold. I am positive that all the boats bailing filled their limits with ease that morning as there were dolphin jumping and chasing bait all morning all along the weed line.
We continued moving north as the day progressed along. This was by far the prettiest day on the water we have had this year. It was easy to see that summer is almost here.
We weaved our way in and out of a series of small canyons following contour lines heading back to Oregon Inlet. As we moved north we continued to pick away and ice down some gaffer dolphin.
Around 2:00pm while working a pretty piece of water we raised our third Marlin of the trip and was he hot!!. This White was fired up!! It was as lit up as I have ever seen a billfish. This fish was hot on the squid teaser and we dropped back a dink pitch bait to the fish and after a few attempts he finally came off the squid teaser and ate the dink bait but dropped it. The White faded off to a Moldcraft Chugger attempting to rip it apart then attacked the port Squid chain teaser as Josh dropped it back. Josh quickly pulled the teaser away from the White and it directly ate the pitch bait I had dropped back for the third time. After a 6 count and feeling the White turn away from the boat I pushed the lever drag forward on the TLD 25 and the fight was on. This was a nice white and after 12-15 minutes we had the leader for the release.
As we continued working north putting a few more gaffers in the boat we finally called it a day about 4:45pm. We headed back to Oregon Inlet under near perfect conditions. It was a great couple of days on the water with a good friend and great weather for the trip. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Below are a few photos from our trip. I also managed to get about two hours of great video. I don’t know when I will get it edited because I still have film from other trips to edit first… Can’t wait to do this trip again!!………Tight Lines Mark

[BTH284]

Great fishing guys. Good pics too

[clt_capt]

Great fishing and some really nice pics - Congrats on the bills

[Agitated88]

report...and the 3rd and 4th picture are amazing!! Thanks for sharing!!

[TunaTeaser1]

Pretty work Mark, thats a solid day. That water looks a lot nicer than what I was fishing in saturday.

[Nauti Natured]

Awesome .... would love to get the boat up there one day.


Thanks for the report!

[JRJBfishing]

Great report AND pictures!

Makes me want to go begin rigging right now... Looks like this week is going to be flat all week!

Thanks,

JRJB

[liv2fish20]

Awesome Report!! Thanks!!!!

[Persistence]

Very nice Mark!!

[2kidsfishing]

Beautiful pics!!!