Long day, perseverance pays off!

I'm never confident with easterly or northeasterly winds, even when it's just a breeze. But Thursday morning felt so nice, cool, and calm when I pulled away from the dock, so I was sure we were in for an epic day. I collected my client crew in Surf City and headed out with plans to run offshore and find some mahi. I hadn't gone far out of Topsail inlet before I realized that "light" breeze must have been blowing all night and had kicked up a sloppy cross swell. It was just enough to slow me down and make me realize that I didn't really want to pound through this for 25 or 30 miles. The crew was still all smiles in the back of the boat, although they'd taken a couple of splashes in the chilly morning air. I changed my plan and stopped us on the AR about 8 miles out. I was hoping we might pick up a king or two over the reef, or at least a shark or barracuda to make things interesting. If the wind died down, we could make the rest of the run. Otherwise, we could work this area and move nearshore to some of the other ledges and rocks. I put out a couple of cigar minnows, one right on top, one on a jig head to run a foot or two deep, and one on the downrigger. We hadn't been trolling long when I saw the first taps on the top line and knew we'd found the needlefish. If you know, you know, but needlefish can be a mixed blessing. The bigger ones can be exciting to catch. They jump and skip the water like a sailfish, and for something so streamlined, they can pull pretty hard too. But they're also notorious for missing the hooks and just slashing at the baits with those long, toothy jaws. You can free spool and try to feed them to hook up, but even then they get away more often than they get hooked. In no time they had ripped up three or four cigar minnows. I put on a couple of ballyhoo instead, since they're more durable, but the needlefish ripped them up too. We eventually managed to catch two, including one real monster that was easily over four feet. I think the crew enjoyed that, and the constant strikes certainly kept everyone excited, but after a while it just got annoying (and I was starting to worry about my bait supply). I decided to make a move. Since the wind was not showing much inclination to slow down, I opted to move us inshore to some ledges a couple miles off the beach. I figured we could at least find some action with the sharpnose sharks, and maybe a big Spanish or a stray king. It turned out to be the right call, as one of the crew had started turning a little green and would probably have really struggled with the 12 or 15 mile ride offshore. As it was, there was some light chumming action when we stopped to fish the nearshore ledges. The conditions were a little better nearshore, but slow trolling was not helping our fellow back aft with his mal de mer. We picked up one small shark and trolled a bit more over good marks, but I felt pretty bad for the poor guy and thought he might do better if we switched up to trolling for Spanish off the beach. I ran us in to about 30' of water and put out the Clark spoons and planers. Trolling on a zigzag, with the swell and wind kept things pretty smooth, and the faster pace kept a nice breeze across the cockpit. Everyone started feeling better, and we picked at some various fish, including a couple of undersized Spanish, a few lizard fish, and some nice-sized blues. We even caught a ladyfish, which was a first for me on Clark spoons. Finally, we started to hook a much nicer class of Spanish as we worked along Figure 8. It was scattered, and we struggled to get some fish all the way into the boat, but by the time we got to Wrightsville Beach we were starting to get into some good schools. Unfortunately, time was almost up. I was fine with letting the trip run over, but they had to be back so I didn't work the schools as I'd have liked to. Nevertheless, by the time we pulled the lines in at Masonboro inlet, they had seven keepers on ice. This worked out, since the crew wasn't really looking for a whole cooler full of fish anyway. The run back up the waterway was beautiful, with very little traffic on a Thursday afternoon. I got them back to Surf City about an hour later than scheduled, but they had plenty of time to get to their dinner plans. Overall, it was a fun, young crew to have aboard. I think everyone had a chance to fight some kind of fish, and they were all tired, but smiling, as we said our goodbyes.