Wilmington inshore / offshore EO July

[thorhammer]

Quick report: had a window to head back to my stomping grounds in Wilmington. Wed afternoon met partner with Pursuit 287 and got rigged, iced, baited. Dept 0500 Thursday from CB Inlet. Pinfish traps empty...whattttttt.....three hours to get to Stream, very choppy and was still sore Friday, but it laid out about noon and got really nice. Saw a feed going on about 1000 at the Steeples and pulled on it, five hits on seven lines, one didn't stick, three fat alberts boated and a really nice YFT lost after he dumped half a 50VSW. Found another school and got a blackfin from it. Wind changed, troll bite died, so we hit some bottom marks: gag, strawberry and red grouper, several nice tiles, snapper, shark, ray, too many grunts (though tasty), a large cuda, porgy, sea bass, and I had a really nice Queen trigger...uncommon for us, 18" TFL and 10" deep.

Also got to finally use a Cortez 4/0, ofe my ice blue ones with Lou's handle. Floated a grunt back on a balloon while on the hook bottom bouncing, and a 25lb AJ sucked it up like  a Cheezit. Really good fight on the old skool Sabre; drags smooth as silk.

Headed north to Hampstead Thursday to see my man Boats for some inshore action; he did well on reds and flatties Wed. Waited out the tide with some pawn shop finds and fished the afternoon....they weren't on. Their tenth anniversary so I told them to chill while I whipped up some blackfin ceviche app while I grilled tuna steaks and asparagus, with Greek salad and Key Lime pie. My fish pics are of the cooler variety; when Chris sends the live action stuff I will post. Weather got us Sat so I bounced and headed to the lake cabin solo for some R&R...that means yard work lol. A great trip. 

[thorhammer]

Fishing Topsail Island, one can pull up to Sear Landing by boat; everything is great. Softshells, plantains and Dos Equis Amber for me. I am actually hanging upside down from the poling platform drinking that Natty....I gots mad skillzzzz like that...

[thorhammer]

Yes Daron, in the freezer for bait! you know which ones lol

[thorhammer]

duplicate, missed the Trigger.

[steelfish]

looks like a pretty good fishing day, that queen trigger is beatiful

congrats John

[Tightlines667]

Great Report!

I love hearing about how you East Coast guys fish the stream.  30nm run doesn't sound terrible.  Bummer you lost the YFT though.  Sounds like you like to mix up the offshore fishing techniques.  I really got to try live baiting, chunking, ballooning, kiting, deep jigging out here at some point.  It is so much simpler to just troll around and search for fish though.

John

[mo65]

Great fishin' John!

[Benni3]

Man that looks like fun  one of my favorite places to go down there is the  " r pub "

[Shark Hunter]

Good Times.
That poling platform looks like a phone in your other hand.

[Big Tim]

Fishing Topsail Island, one can pull up to Sear Landing by boat; everything is great. Softshells, plantains and Dos Equis Amber for me. I am actually hanging upside down from the poling platform drinking that Natty....I gots mad skillzzzz like that...

Your'e going to spill your beer drinking like that  Looks like fun... I got 6 days till I'm out again.

BT

[thorhammer]

Hey John, it's about 55-60 miles where we go, though up around Hatteras it can push in as close as the 20's. You bring up a point: I always pay attention differing geographical techniques to bring home something different they ain't seen before...some of the drum spots are so pressured the fish can tell you what Wal-mart your Zara Spook came from. So, a bit more about our method:

We have to run 40 miles or better to break 100ft; the break from 130 to 300 is about 55 miles as said. Very flat, and the late summer bite is tough anyway. the wahoo have moved on, and the mahi are anywhere, mixed in with king mackeral, and are mostly slingers with a few gaffers mixed in. They are in the 10-30 mile areas on structure, and no doubt we ran around them, but there was no weedline at all, and few flying fish....unusual for July. So we planned a run to the Steeples to target blackfin, which means we go with small Islander Jrs and Sailures (blue and white) over med ballyhoo, with one pink squid chain on short rigger and a green chain on the WWB. I run an islander Jr in black/red on a planer, bridled rig (great method if you haven't tried it). This gets a lot of blackfin bites, kings, cudas also, and is the ono-getter in spring and fall, though when targeting them I use purple and black Islander. They will hit the blk / red also.

If the troll bite dies, which it does on occasion, or even if just on way in, we route to our bottom marks for Big Tasty. In spring and fall we will high speed troll on the move to the spots, running large 'hoo lures on my bent-butt 80's spooled with 200lb PP and 150lb mono topshot, running 16knts. Once there we'll drop hook to position on ledge if calm enough, or leave a man on the helm if not. Preferable we have live pinfish, mullet or jig up grass grunts to fish grouper on a Tim Barefoot Decoy Jig...more about that later. Ingenious jig figured out by one of the best bottom guys I know. Tim is a friend and former dockmate of mine; if anyone remembers Barefoot gaffs carried by BPS some years ago, that was him; about the first fiberglas gaff I knew of. We also will drop two hook bottom rigs with squid, left over ballyhoo, cigars, whatever, and I love a butterflied grunt as well.

Based on marks we see, there are a lot of fish in the water column we have been missing on, likely attracted to all the crap in the water from our baits going down and the fish purging on the way up. We always keep a Slammer 460LL bailing rod handy and on occasion the mahi, cobia  and even wahoo will up to the boat. So, we started freelining a bait back, just stuck in the top, and still keep bailing rod handy. This trip was the first where I floated a bait on balloon. I spooled with 50lb BG bright green with 30ft 80 fluoro topshot, then a bead to peg on the double uni, two ounce egg, bead, black ONLY snap swivel, bead, swivel, and another six feet of 80 fluoro to a four inch 80lb single strand wire with a 7/0 Gami Octopus. Point being, a 'hoo may hit it, but in reality most strikes here will be cuda or kings and the short wire wont deter mahi turned on by the food slick.  This gives a free line on surface or slightly below, using a Slammer 560LL, and the rig above to position 25-30ft down in the column. Works well.

Just because we don't already have enough to do, we've started talking about the kite. lol. I think this would be great for tuna back away from the boat where we are banging lead and playing Hank. The commercial guys here all use Green Sticks, so why not?

Also jigging with Avet SX (BT actually turned me on that buy) on a Cedros, or a one of the built Jiggy's, or my original Torium 20 setup. This could be the Decoy, butterfly jig, or Roscoe, or whatever. My bottom rod is usually 9500SS on  Trevalla heavy jig rod, for the retrieve rate.

[coastal_dan]

Very nice John.

[thorhammer]

live trigger pic.

[Steve-O]

Nice report and pics! Have caught piles of triggers before but never a Queen Trigger. Beautiful fish.