Ok y'all,
here's a dock picture from today's bottom fishing trip. Slip Slidin, his dad and I on the Cheerio Lady out of Carolina Beach with young captain Caleb Batson at the helm.
Good day, with a couple of good stories to tell. I'll fill you in when I get a chance.
Very nice Nick and Nick! Looks like you guys had a good time. Looking forward to the full story.BTW Biscuit...that grouper from sunday was mighty tasty tonight
The Batson family has been running their old fashioned Carolina blue painted charter boats out of Carolina Beach, NC for many decades. They focus on taking people fishing for a living. No tournaments, no fancy gold reels, no fighting chair, no mate. Just good "blue collar", 16 mile an hour cruise, fishing near shore for groupers and other good eating bottom fish.
Caleb Batson at 22 years of age is just a kid, but has been in his daddy's boats since he was 9. He has been running the Cheerio Lady for the past few years. The Cheerio Lady is a 1979 Unicraft hull, that Caleb's daddy built into a tidy and capable charter fishing boat. All cockpit, no salon. Nice tent for shade and six chairs in the deck. High rail all around and rod holders everywhere you look.
Slip Slidin's father "Jimbo", loves to fish. For him fishing is only holding the rod, feeling the bite and setting the hook. Never could we get him into trolling. He once slept through a 30+ yellowfin tuna and several wahoo morning. He reeled on a fish for a couple of minutes then handed me the rod and with a look of disgust in his face he said: "you call this fishin? Those stupid fish hook themselves!
Jimbo likes to survey the docks at Carolina beach in the evening. Lately he had been watching Caleb Batson come back day after day with a good catch of groupers. He said he wanted to fish with him and then twisted Slip Slidin's and my arm to join him.
Halfway through the ride I reached in the drink cooler for some water and was shocked to discover an entire bunch of bananas resting on ice! I looked at Nick who smiled and said they belonged to the old man. I lifted them out of the cooler and brought them to the young captain's attention. He smiled easy and motioned "no problem". "If we don't catch any fish, we'll have something to blame it on" he said. I liked that and knew we were in good hands for the day.
Fishing was not spectacular. It actually started off rather slow. We were fishing near shore (30 mile range) 80 - 90 foot ledges. The current was backing into the wind, turning the boat sideways and making it hard to stay tight on the mark. This inshore gag fishing is all about putting the bait in their face. If you do that and they are in the mood, then they play.
The first 4 or 5 stops yielded 3-4 keepers total. The young captain, although not happy with the anchoring challenges and the slow catching, never stopped working remaining courteous and polite. I had a good feeling it would only be a matter of time.
By noon we were melting in the 96 degree heat and just when our motions started to slow a bit and out concentration drifting, the fish decided to play! After hours of wasting the finest live and dead baits possible on 'em, the gags decided they liked nasty frozen sardines!
Slip Slidin with the first of the 10 or so gags we caught on our last stop.
The light lines started going off just as the groupers begun chewin. A couple of small kings interrupted us and then a big one tried his best to spool me before biting through the wire leader.
Trying to keep the light lines fishing while there's a hot bottom bite going on is a bit hectic and in an effort to do that I made a huge mistake! I had just lowered a double dead sardine on a slide rig, using my brand new Saltist 50 reel and my solid glass rod with the extra long butt I love bottomfishing with. The light line went off and instead of puting my bottom rod in the holder, I leaned it against the rail! Words cannot describe my feeling when I got whacked by my $300 outfit as it was headed overboard after a vicious bite. My bad, I know, but it hurt nevertheless! The light line bite ended up being a 10 lb shark!
In the meantime, the bite continues fast and furious. I was finding it hard to get back in the swing of things and slowly started rigging my back up outfit. Caleb and Nick landed a couple more very nice fish and are now focused on getting Jimbo hooked up. 20 - 30 minutes have past since my rod & reel went overboard, when captain Caleb is again hooked up! He said that fish was acting funny, but stuck with it. I went by to assist with the gaff but could see no deep color on the fish yet, when Caleb said "I see something bright yellow down there". Instantly I knew. I use 100 lb hi vis yellow power pro on my grouper rigs. Caleb had hooked my rod on the bottom! The lucky rig broke the surface and I reached over grabbed it, unhooked Caleb's offset 8/O from the fore grip and proceeded to fight & land the 15 pound gag that stole my shit 30 minutes ago and was still dragging it around the bottom attached by a 8/O circle hook at the corner of the mouth, with 90 feet of line and a locked down drag.
Captain Caleb with the "catch of the day". 15 lb gag & $ 300 rod & reel!
We quickly made out our limit, released a few fatties and called it a day.
To get the rod and reel alone was unbelievable but to have the sorry rascal that stole it on the other end was amazing. They can play dirty, they can run and hide but in the end Biscoto always gets them one way or another. I think Captain Yannis shined a little light on you yesterday Biscoto. To be able to spend the day with my dad and Biscoto doing something we truly love cannot be described in words. Thanks again Biscoto. I have a safety line made up that we can strap to your belt loop. hee hee
that ol' gag thought he had him a trophy to hang up on his ledge! i was just getting ready to say this story ranks right up there with the tales of the Old Captain....one to remember.
Raised at the coast - now landlocked in the Research Triangle, NC
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Whew boys - that's some story. Nice day on the water fellas. Be sure to stay on your low fiber diet, Nick - Otherwise I'm afraid you might pass that horseshoe you seem to have lodged in there!
Headed down this weekend to put some meat in the cooler.
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! must be part of the story to come!
