Well, Gary and I made it down to Hatteras Saturday eve at about 10 PM. Got settled in at our favorite place and were cranked up for a tip out in the AM. The weather report was right for a change and Sunday turned out beautiful. We trolled the Rockpile with little action other than false albies so we got bored and headed towards the deeper water.
Nothing showing out there although I did get two very light draws on my split bill that sure acted like a white marlin. Hard to believe there woul be one out there in Jan but who knows. We headed over to the 230 rocks with nary a sniff and then turned back towards the rockpile. Out of nowhere the WWWB bird/green machine starts getting smashed by something. Four huge eruptions and finally a hookup! 10 mins later a nice fat 40 lb yellow fin hit the deck.
Trolled a while longer with no sniffs and headed back in to beat the sunset.
We found this fellow cruising about 15 miles outside the inlet. First Basking shark I've seen off Hatteras.
On Monday we set out to do it all again but to a different beat this time. We stopped at the king mackeral fleet just inshore of the 230 rocks and managed to troll up several false albies, a shark, and an amberjack. Every mack we hooked came unbuttoned at one point or another. Arrggghh.
Finally tried dead baiting some ballyhoo and managed two nice eating size kings.
Well, since the weather was so nice we decided to run to hatteras canyon outside of the rock pile and try deep dropping for swords.
Ran the 20 miles from the 230's to the head of the canyon and rigged up. First time ever so we were experimenting. I dropped with a brick tied onto my 20/0 circle and a 20 sinker at my snap swivel. Snapped off the brick by jerking on the rod and drifted for 1/2 hour. Nothing going so we hauled it back up. The rig had completely tangled. We figured that the 20 OZ sinker had actually passed the brick on the way down because it is so streamlined so we went to just a brick tied below the hook.
Set her back out, this time with just the brick in about 240 fathoms. Drifted about 1/2 hour and nothing going so in it comes again. This time the bait (false albacore belly strip) is stripped clean. A good sign as the only likely culprit at 1200 feet is squid. And we all know what eats squid.
Dropped a third time. About 15 minutes into this drift I get up and leave the rod to Gary. He says "it might be good to try somebody else's luck on the rod". About 10 seconds later it was fish on! Fought the unknown critter for about 15 minutes straight down when he decided he'd had enough and it charged the surface. Big mako posiden missile vaults out about 50 yards away. We get a second jump a bit closer and the tug of war is on. Now, this is a fish in the 250 to 300 lb range on 200 lb mono. Hopes were not high about it ever coming to the boat. But 40 minutes and several good runs against 25 plus pounds of drag and suddenly it was in range.
We finally get it posistioned just right and Gary manages a perfect shot with the harpoon. I've harpooned a bunch of makos when I commercial fished and I've never seen what happened next. That fish spun 360 and grabbed the pole in its mouth and damn near snapped it in half. That harpoon has been in my family since the mid 60's and that devil fish just trashed it!
The real bummer (as we figured out later) was this. When it grabbed the pole it also grabbed the warp in it's maw. While hauling back I could feel it slowly gnawing away and it eventually chewed through the 3/8" line. Bummer.
Decided to head in to try and beat the sun again.
We had had enough fun for one weekend. That type of fish wears you out.
We headed in and made it back just before dark. All in all it was way more fun than a man should be allowed to have.
Hatteras Report
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