monster wahoo out of topsail

**flyin fisher** · 06-25-2007, 05:30 PM

This is a long story but should be a good read. Left out of Topsail Sunday morning to troll for kings and dolphin. Stopped on the beach and at 362 to jig bait, then headed to some numbers 20 miles out where we caught fish the day before. Caught a ten pound dolphin after five minutes then the bite stopped so we decided to run to cripple rock. The bite was on here and we had a limit of kings and 3 dolphin by 3 pm, so we decided to try for mr grouper. We drifted over one spot and caught and undersized gag and decided to move. We got to our second spot and started fishing. All three of us were fishing off the back of the boat when I saw 2 nice dolphin swim right beside the boat. I grabbed a king rod and a live sardine and ran to the front of the boat, jumped up on the bow and pitched the bait out. The dolphin inhaled the bait and ran about 40 yards. I told one of the other guys to come up front with another king rod and live sardine in hopes that the fish wouldn't be alone. My buddy drops the bait in the water right beside the boat to have it ready to pitch when the dolphin gets close to the boat, and as soon as the bait hits the water I see a monster wahoo swim up right beside the boat and slam the bait. Mind you this is a king rod spooled with 420 yards of 20# test and #3 wire. I immediately break the dolphin off, run to the back and start the motors. We probably had 30 yards of line left on the spool before I could turn the boat around and plane it off to chase the fish. Yes, I said plane the boat off. We finally started to get line back and got the fish close to the boat, but he wouldn't come up, staying maybe 30 or 40 feet below the boat. We fought the fish for 4 hours and 51 minutes before he finally met the gaff. By this time it's 9:30 pm, but thanks to some help from the coast guard we got a message relayed earlier to home that we might be late. We get back at 10:15 and decide to go weight the fish in the morning. We drive him to East Coast Sports to get the kid a citation and I'm thinking the fish will probably go 75 or 80 pounds. Doug puts him on the scale and it reads 95.55 pounds. I think we were all speechless. Needless to say this is one trip none of us will ever forget. Thanks again to the Coast Guard for helping us relay a message home, those guys went out of there way fielding phone calls for us.