My son wanted to go fishing so I hooked us up and "the General" from Fish Milita came along.
Got to take a trip on the Marauder out of Pirate's Cove with Captain Troy Crane, a 35 foot Bertram custom outfitted for sportfishing.
I've got to say that he has a great boat, great mate and he was a great Capt.
Capt Troy had to decided that he was going to run to a nearby Tower for the day and we knew this going into the trip,so Rob came along prepared. He brought along a 7ft boat rod (spinner) spooled with 17lb Sufix,a top water popper,and a Spro Swim Bait.
The tower we decided to go too we had all to ourselves,all day and that was great. As soon as we pulled along side of the tower we were marking fish. Now we were in a 100ft of water and the marks went from about 30 ft to the floor.
Instantly we fire over the side. One person threw a bucktail,another a butterfly jig and Rob threw the Spro. Within minutes we were all hooked up with some tough Amber Jacks(AJs) and we did this for a few casts,before we switched over to something we had never done in the past..
We all tied up top water poppers to see if we could raise the AJs to the surface and get them to bust. Oh My God did this work and how... We spent the rest of the day blistering AJs on the surface. At times we had 40-50 fish ranging in every size conceivable coming to the surface and ERUPTING on these poppers. We even tied a 20 oz water bottle that had a few ounces of water in it to a rod and tossed it over.The darn fish were knocking it out of the water like a basketball..
What an absolutely amazing time we all had.. We had heard about using the poppers for AJs, but had never tried it. Usually the AJs get alot of pressure and are hard to raise like this,but not this day.. They were on the poppers like a teenage boy to a "Playboy Magazine".
If you have never caught AJs let me assure you that they are what I refer to as a "Bicep Destroyer".. No matter the size they are a force to reckon with..especially on the light tackle we were using..
We caught fish up to about 50lbs on these bad boys and we all left very wipped from an all day whacking of these fish. We could never fish a bucktail or butterfly jig again for these fish and have as much fun.. Not to say that we wouldn't :-)
Rob jumped over the side with his underwater still camera, which failed him in a big way. The Capt., Rob, and myself were all shooting video with our own cameras..We all got some amazing vid.
Rob and I had a blast yesterday. which was the 1st time in 5 years of working together that we fished with each other..I even caught a fish on Rob's rod :-)
I Had a great time with good people on a good boat...If you think this is up your alley,then I would give Capt Troy a call and Book the Marauder for a trip you won't forget..
The jacks were so thick, even Ray Charles could have hooked up
check out the Hi-Rez video at
Marauder Sportfishing - Inshore Sportfishing from North Carolina's Outer Banks
or if you are windows media impaired you can view the lower res video on you tube at
YouTube - Amberjack Fishing Outer Banks North Carolina
below are a few photos from the trip
All Jack'd Up
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