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On Saturday, we mixed two groups that had to reschedule due to weather together into one group and we made it happen. We had Manny Silva and the boys from New Jersey as well as Russell Willoughby from the Virginia Beach anglers club/ Chip Yost group from Virginia. The target today was to get one last shot at bluefin tunas out of Hatteras this spring. Its getting to be late in the season to get bluefins out of Hatteras and I expect this trip would likely be our last trip for bluefins until I get back to Virginia in June. Spring has sprung and Hatteras fishing will soon be mostly yellowfins and dolphin.
The weather was aboslutely beautiful. Slick flat seas and warm, sunny skies. On friday, some bluefins showed up late in the afternoon near the point and we went straight there. There was some really bad fog that kept the Oregon Inlet fleet on the dock until late, so we arrived at the point to find that we had it all to ourselves, which never happens. There is almost always a crowd there.
Getting there early, we had the first shot at the fish and we found them and very quickly got to work on the bluefins before the fleet arrived. There were bluefins everywhere. Great marks on the sounder and as the sun got up, pods of bluefins could be seen everywhere crusing the surface. It was really impressive to see so many bluefins around. The fishing was also very good.
As soon as we arrived, we set out our spread and did a quick loop, then got nailed. Our first troll bite we had several fish blow up on our baits and one very large boil came tight on the tiagra 80 wide on the longrigger fished way back with a purple/black squidnation big heavy/horse ballyhoo. We cranked the spread in and set up for the fight. The fish got into the cold side of the break and in the cool water, this fish was really strong and gave us a very good fight. After an hour at almost 40# of drag, we had the fish at boatside being measured and we had already killed our giant for the year, so any fish we inteded to kill would have to be 73" or smaller. This fish measured out at 72" so it would make a very good kill fish. We carefully pulled it in the boat and spent a good while prepping the fish, gutting it, bleeding it, and icing it, to ensure sushi quality and then we got back to fishing.
There were fish all around us and some boats had arrived at this time, so rather than try to troll through the whole oregon inlet fleet, we decided to set up the jig. We instantly started getting bites from smaller 70-100# class bluefins- perfect size for the jig. We did this for a while, had some bites, had some pulloffs and breakoffs and caught a couple. Overall it was just incredible bluefin fishing.
We made our way back to the south and on the cold side of the change, there were thousands of near dead bluefish is some sort of state of shock swimming in slow circles on the surface. There were miles of them. We stopped and took a look and while we were watching we saw huge hammerheads come in a start attacking the stunned bluefish. It was an awesome sight to see. There were hammerheads all over thrashing and throwing whitewater as they fed. We quickly gaffed one of the bluefish and pitched it to a cruising hammerhead. The 12' long shark picked up the bait and mouthed it, but I guess it felt the hook and dropped the 15# bait. We put it in gear and headed south to back to Hatteras soon after. On the ride back, there were huge schools of bluefish finning on the surface, turtles, lots of man-o-wars, and there were even some big whales breaching at the inlet. It was a beautiful spring day.
Our 72" kill fish weighed in at 167# after being gutted.
We have plenty of charter dates available, so give me a call at 757-749-6008 or visit my site at www.matadorcharters.com and get your day booked.
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