Week of 4/20/09 North Topsail Bonitos and Spanish!
We finally hit a great stretch of weather and some very cooperative fish to boot!
Saturday and Sunday had some VERY consistent fishing with a bunch of tasty and hard fighting fish caught. Both days were chock full of lite tackle bonito and spanish mackerel action. Saturday I had the Smiths on board, they have a house in Snead’s Ferry and were doubting the existence of fish in the North Topsail area. By 7 a.m. we had caught more fish then they had last year, starting off with blues we quickly started hitting the bonitos on the Yozuri deep divers in pink and clown colors, the bite kept accelerating as the morning wore on. After the first bonitos the Smiths did not want anymore bluefish but the blues had other ideas, they were ravenous and could not keep them off the lines. As the morning ticked away the spanish mackerel started to show and some very nice large specimens were added to the fish box. The fish were biting so well that seabass were hitting the deep divers trolled at 5 kts. The bite continued into early afternoon when we went in.
On Sunday I had Max, Seth, and Nate on board, they wanted to catch the bonitos and spanish on fly and jigging tackle. We left a little earlier and were rewarded to less boats and the fish really going off! Captain John was out there working the area and wearing out the fish on the troll with the deep divers again. His charter was ready to go in at 9:30 with enough fish for a fish fry for their Marine Corps unit. My guys worked with the flies and jigs and were rewarded with a fine catch of bonitos and spanish mackerel. Shore lures glass minnow jigs in pink/white and all white contributed fish to the box, fly caught fish ate pink and white clousers and chartreuse and white alf’s. Also part of the catch today were some nice seabass caught on the flies and jigs.
We have some great weather coming up this week and the water is warming quickly, time to get out there and fish!
Tight lines,
Captain Jim