December 27/28

[CaptGorges]

Took advantage of some no-shirt weather and ran offshore a couple times with family and friends out of Beaufort Inlet.

On Thursday I jumped the Lookout shoals with 3 friends, ran to the Atlas area. Trolled out from there, got to a chunk of 76 degree water with good bottom, put some blackfin in the boat, headed back towards the Atlas once I lost them, got real thick into the falsies, lots of double and triple-ups that day, one pentuple(??) up, 2 blackfin and 3 falsies. On the way back in I believe I hit a whale...I know I hit something, and the guy beside me turned back to make sure we were all right and said he saw something big and black surface behind us and blow out air/water. Saw no injured animal/blood. Motor wouldnt start for about 30 minutes, finally got it running and proceeded back on in. Ended up keeping 7 blackfin, 3 falsies. Found a nice ledge on the way in too Ill check out in the future.

On Friday my dad, brother, cousin, and I planned on trout at the jetty, but all phone calls we made said nada, so we pointed her due south to the Big/Little 10 area. Tried some bottom fishing, produced nothing. Switched to trolling and started into 20-30lb albies immediately. Ended up releasing about 15, and I was glad to finally put my brother on some fighting fish, last time he made it down here all I could find us was a 13" Spanish and he wouldnt get up at 5AM for offshore trips in the summer, so he was pumped on the albies. Moved offshore some more towards the R14 in hopes of warmer water, never found anything better than 63 degrees, should have hit the eastside. Nothing out there except a TON of porpoises, coming within feet of the boat and just looking at us. Picked up and headed in around 3, stopping at ledges and dropping jigs real quick, produced nothing then WHAMMO, I hadnt realized how far off GPS course I was but I found a 80' to 70' to 60' to 55' to 42' bump, COVERED in marks. A 40ft rise that fell back down to 65' then back off to 80' within a 150yd area. Didnt troll, but found the edges with the bottom machine. We fished it for about 30 minutes, non stop BSB, 4 over 15", triggerfish, grunts, all kinds of reef complex species, small gags on a sabiki. Probably the most promising area Ive found in NC waters, I cant wait to go back and dive it!

Good trips, good times, good fishing. Ive had good Christmas, and I hope everybody else has too!

[bluffman2]

great report ...thanks for sharing it!!! and yes go Dive it!!

[HeadHunt]

Nice... sounds like you found a future honey hole!!

Alan

[vettnman]

I love those ledges that you happen to stumble on like that. usually find mine trolling around and marking them on my fishfinder. You've gotta go back and drop some butterflies or squid down to it. No telling what you might bring up.

[Capt. Fred]

Nice couple of days. Thanks for the report.