_I had Ed, Sam, Alan, E-Man, and Dan join me for some jigging. I threw a pair of 50's on for some high speeding between spots, and we headed out in nice seas for the waters south of Beaufort inlet. The plan was to find some pompano and cobia hiding amongst the amberjacks. First stop about 45 miles off resulted in a boat load of people with sore backs and rubber arms. The aj's were big, mean and plentiful and hook ups were almost instant. We tried slow mechanical jigging to entice cobia and pomps, but the aj's ran blocker for them, and it turned into a nonstop trip on the "pain train".
We made a few moves to try and get away from the aj's with no luck.

Made the decision to push off deep for big triggers, so we threw out the high speed stuff and got hammered at 18 kts. We pulled the hooks on that one.

Found the triggers in 210 feet. Dropped anchor and landed right on the mess and soon enough the guys put a nice catch of 60 or so jumbo triggers in the brine tank despite setting sideways on the rode with strong current and stronger than forecast winds.

The conditions for bottom dropping got worse so we pulled anchor and worked back in and had a nice mid forties hoo eat a small green machine / bird combo on mono. He made it too the gaff and we crammed it into the brine tank for a nice finish to the day.

It was a fun day with a fun crew and everybody got a pile of fish for many tasty dinners. The weather wasn't as pretty as it was supposed to be, but the fish were chewing. We managed to not lose a single jig, although one of my high speed lures got fubar pretty bad. It will be replaced with one of Capt' Bob's HooDoos, those things are gonna kill some hoos.

__Sorry for the late report, I went inshore fishing with a friend, and frankly stunk the joint up ! I believe Mama nature was paying me back for the whoopin' we put on her fish on Saturday.

Headed out a bit later than normal, and saw the fleet steaming to the popular spots. We zigged when they zagged and ended up about 60 off to the south over some good bottom. Trolled for an hour or so with only a couple of blackfin lost at the boat and an albacore. Lost interest in that really fast when the sonar was screaming "Stop and Drop ". This spot has been good to me before so we yanked the trolling stuff out of the water, readied the pain poles, got a drift line, and broke out the anchor. I told the crew that this was gonna be good. Dropped anchor in the 215 ft of water, and once the rode came tight we were sitting right where we wanted to be. Drop and reel jumbo triggers, some sand tiles , and jumbo b-liners mixed in. Alan caught a beautiful indigo parrotfish, Jeff scored his first fish ever vertical jigging and it was a stud of a red grouper. A few amberjacks and almacos were smacking the jigs, while Amy, Sam, and Rob kept piling trigger after trigger in the brine tank. Alan had the battle of his life on a jigging rod when he, after what seemed like forever, brought a 350 lb. true tiger shark to the boat. I joined in on the fun and yanked up an AJ in the 80 to 90 lb. range.

The fishing never slowed, and Thankfully the crew responsibily took a few breaks, changed between techniques and wanted to try some other stuff to avoid going over the limits. Amy, however, was a machine when it came to bringing up two hubcap sized triggers at a time. We left them biting and we were running out of room and legality to stay there any longer so we went on the high speed troll to put some miles in towards shore. We ran a bit out of the way after I saw how much the guys were enjoying vertical jigging and stopped on a wreck for the "Last drop". It was a pretty fast paced action and the big aj's and albacore were piling on the jigs, everybody who wanted to caught a few fish there and then it was time to head to the hill.

The ride in got a bit sloppy for the last 15 or so miles, but it was nice to have a day when sloppy, meant that we had to back it off to about 30 kts.
Everybody took coolers full of fish home, the weather was beautiful, the crew was a joy to have on board, the fish were jumping in the boat, and the Captain even had some triggers left over that wouldn't fit in the crews 6 or 7 coolers. Thanks Again Guys, It was a pleasure !!

I had some special guest, Captain Scotty (Badfinger) and good friends Kenny and Sue (Reelhooker, formerly Realhooker) came down on a whim to kill some fishies. The weather looked great for a couple days of fish abuse, but that changed. There has been a great wahoo bite going on earlier in the week so the plan was to head out, high speed troll up a bunch of hoos, then round the day out with some bottom fish.
We left out with high hopes late in the morning to see if the 20 knt. winds were gonna lay out a bit. Headed 60 miles off to where the wahoo live through sloppy seas and spots of torrential rain and were rewarded by beautiful blue water and scattered weeds. Soon enough we came to the realization that the wahoo weren't gonna chew today as the reports of only one wahoo coming over the radio broke our spirit. We slowed it down to see if the wahoo were just being lazy and only ended up catching a few albacore.
It was time to go to plan B and the B stands for bottom. We were in an area that I seldom bottom fish so we started looking around for some good marks. We ran over a small scratch that looked right and circled back to check it out. Made a drift or two for more intel and I started liking what I was seeing. Set the anchor, and it was on. The variety wasn't there, but the triggers and seabass were thick. Tried to pull up some groupers, but the triggers were cleaning off the hooks before they got down. Scotty, Kenny and Sue all did great in the sloppy conditions and after a short while they piled up quite a catch of nice triggers and some other good eating bottom dwellers.

All in all it was a blast of a trip despite the rain , wind, and wahoo with lockjaw. The ball busting was bordering on abusive, and in most states criminal. We enjoyed a couple days of some nice meals and margaritas and didn't let the weather keep the spirits down. I would have enjoyed calm seas, sunny skies and suicidal wahoo, but the good company made up for the lack of those things. The full cooler load of trigger fillets was just icing on the cake.

I often hear there is more than one way to skin a cat. Flounder fishing can be tough down here compared to my old haunts......unless you go out at night.

Water temp 88 degrees
Water Depth, less than 2 ft
Water Clarity, a bit cloudy
Hot Lure, a 10 ft. pole with a trident on the end.

We could have stuck quite a few more. We had to work for them due to the extra large moon tides. It looks like we are gonna have a few days of light winds and the tides should start slacking off a bit. Clear water+ light currents+ light wind = Flounder massacre.

I had the pleasure of having a group from Pa. make the drive down to do a bit of bottom dropping. Everybody on board with the exception of one were fishing newbies so we made a stop in 130 ft. for some schooling. It was immediate drop and reel on seabass, triggers, snappers and porgies. We released most all the seabass but kept a couple dozen big ones for the table. The grouper were there however the seabass were so thick we couldn't keep a grouper bait down more than a couple seconds.

Decided the crew had caught on to the fishing thing so I pointer her further offshore to go and load up on some grouper. We pushed another 10 miles offshore at an easy 35 kts. in the calm seas when the starboard motor loses RPM's. Now we are a bit over 50 off so we started working back towards the beach.

The kids on board kept asking if we were gonna catch any sharks. I kept saying "I hope not.". Well we already were throwing back keepers so why not show the kids some excitement ? I anchored just over a wreck where I have been seeing bruiser sharks. 8 to 10 footers and plenty of them. Took some single strand, haywired on some 9/0 circles and sent a jigging rod out with half a Boston Mackeral. 20 ft. behind the boat it gets eaten by a 8 ft. bull. The kids were freaking out because the excitement with the mackeral blood and hooked shark, the rest of the sharks gathered around the boat. There were dozens of 8 to 10 footers cruising the surface all around the boat. Everybody on board had a chance pulling those beasts to the boat, and soon enough they were done with that kind of abuse. It was neat seeing Peggy, the only woman on board, doing the mother hen thing. Gathering up the little chicks (Tommy, Chris, Andrew and Zach) from the gunnels and herding them to the middle of the boat when all the sharks showed at the boat.

We made our way inshore a few more miles to finish off the day with a few more amberjacks and such. Hooked up a few aj's as soon as we got to my mark, and a nice bull mahi eats a shimano jig and puts on a show.
Took another drift and added three more mahi to the catch and headed in at a non typical speed. The crew was happy even though I wasn't able to move around as I like due to being on one engine. I guess we took a bag of lemons and made......... fillets.

From April 2011

Sorry about the lack of updates lately....busy, busy, busy !

The billfishing has been hot as well as the weather. Warm water has moved the dolphin and sailfish to the nearshore grounds, the grouper are waiting in the shadows on the bottom, and the giant 100 + pound Tarpon have taken up their annual residence in the Pamlico sound. Many options available to the angler from fishing a few miles off the beach , to the gulfstream, to the hot shallow waters in the Pamlico Sound. With the warm weather, the speed and open cockpit of our 32' SeaCraft makes for a great day out on the water. Jigging amberjacks has also moved closer to the beach with plenty of the tackle busting bruisers waiting to test any angler on the nearshore shipwrecks and reefs. The summer months are great fro bailing great eating dolphins off the weedlines with light tackle live bait and topwater  lures.  Come aboard and enjoy the sunshine on one of the fastest charter boats along the Crystal Coast.  The fish are waiting !!!!!

NC Dolphin Madness/ Inshore Cobia/ Grouper !! May and June are months where you can experience some of the best fishing the East Coast has to offer. I still have some dates available, and, many options for the hardcore deep jigging angler, to the trolling guys, to the light tackle sight casting to huge cobia crowd, and more. Plan a trip to the beautiful Crystal Coast, the fishing is hot, the scenery incredible, and don't forget to bring a large cooler for your catch !!

The dolphin have made their annual showing and limit catches of 20 lb. gaffers are not uncommon. Wahoo and blackfin are here as well. Billfish of all shapes and sizes are waiting a mere 50 miles from the dock and over the next month sailfish can be caught within sight of the beach.

Cobia migrate along the coast feeding on the large bait balls of menhadden, and move inside of the barrier islands to feed and spawn. This offers sight casting and live linning for cobia exceeding 90 lbs !! They are just starting to show up and should get thicker over the next couple weeks. I am offering cobia trips for only 500 bucks a day due to the proximity of the fishing. We often catch within 50 yards of the beach, making these trips doable in almost any weather. Don't miss out on this rare fishery.

As always, grouper are hungry and waiting offshore. Amberjacks, almacos, african pompano, king mackeral, and many other species are stacked on the offshore live bottom areas along with many different species of grouper waiting for you to drop a jig. Triggerfish to 8 lbs are common on the deep water corals, and are in my opinion the finest table fare in the ocean. Call and book a date for a bottom fisherman's dream trip.

Combo trips are a favorite. Troll the morning , load up on mahi, tuna and wahoo, then go to the jig and bottom rigs and top off the cooler with groupers, triggers, snappers, ect. Lets go get them ! Check out the website for rates and specials. www.procastinatorsportfishing.com


Thanks ,
Captain John Cawthern