Wellcraft V20 Community - Hatteras Memorial Day Report 2011

Wow what a great 10 days on Hatteras Island spent with good friends. Hopefully I will be adding pics soon. I didn't have enough room on my thumb drive for all of the good ones.

The first few days there were only 4 of us fishing one boat. A few days later the other 4 came down to fill out the 2nd crew.

Sunday May 22

First day fishing. The forecast called for amazing weather offshore and a good blow coming in the next couple days so with that we decided we'd better head offshore Sunday. Bob, Brumfield, Slick and myself set off in Bob's Kencraft 206 to beautiful seas and a light South wind. Lost at least 2 fish this day, one was in the midst of a double header. About 5 lbs of weeds got wrapped up in the leader mid-fight and the nice dolphin got away. The other one was not so lucky. We ended up with 3 up to probably 12 lbs on day one.

Bob

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_...6/S2010032.JPG

Bob's best friend Brumfield

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Me

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Monday May 22 - Wednesday May 24

During the blow we opted for fishing inside (the sound) for flounder and perhaps some cobia. Flouder fishing was consistent - we landed around 40 fish between the 4 of us on Monday. The bad part is only 2 keepers.
Tuesday we decided to anchor and cobia fish in a likely spot with a chumbag on the bottom (downrigger). We caught big ray after big ray after big ray. We were fighting over who would have to reel the next one in! Just as we were about tired of losing 6 - 8 ounce egg sinkers to the tune of about 10 lbs worth, we brought a ray up beside the boat to get the hook out and retrieve the precious lead weight when we noticed a small cobia swimming with it. I grabbed the bucktail rig we had ready for such occasions and dropped it in the water. The cobia took notice but would not hit. That is when I dropped it in free spool and he dove down after it - FISH ON! Not knowing whether or not the fish would keep, we did not want to gaff it. I'm pretty sure it would not go the required 33 inches FL, but nonetheless after a short fight boatside I tried to keep the fish there while the others unhooked the ray. In doing so, the line got wrapped awkwardly around the bail of the spinning reel rendering me helpless. While trying to straighten out the mess the fish came off. Did a little flounder fishing after that and caught one keeper out of about 6 or 8 landed. Wednesday we rode out of the inlet along the beach and up to the shoals to try to spot the BIG cobia. As our luck would have it Wednesday was about the slowest day of the week for the hard core cobia fleet. Some rode all day and never saw a single fish....we rode 1/2 day and did not see a single fish. We did however nail a 10 lb king, several blues, and a spanish while looking.

Pics for these 3 days:

Bob

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Slick with the biggest at 18.5"
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Slick's fish and my 15.25" keeper
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Brumfield with a HOSS
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My other keeper 16"
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Fighting rays

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Thursday May 25

With the wind still blowing, but a favorable tide for exiting and re-entering the inlet we decided to head offshore. This day we had 2 full crews fishing two boats but only one of us headed out. The others stayed behind for the flatties and cobia. We found a quick bite landing 3 but large seas cut our adventure to just an hour or two. Back inside by 11:30, we hit the flounder again along with our buddy boat. About 60 flounder landed this day between the two boats with no keepers. So sad.

G with a nice one

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https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-o...6/S2010056.JPG

Slick, me, and Cory
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Slick with a slinger

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Friday May 26 - Sunday May 28

Friday the wind finally layed some so off we went. This time both boats offshore. The bite was not red hot at all but we managed 5 and our buddies got 4. Saturday all but 3 of us already left for home. The 3 of us stayed 2 more days until Monday so offshore we went once again both of these days. Saturday we went to a different spot. Pretty consistent bite this day with us putting 4 nice gaffers in the box by 9:30. Things slowed for a bit until we were able to get 3 (or 4) more before heading in to the hill. This day we had 3 bulls with the biggest going 18 lbs. He came in on a double hookup with a 12 lb cow. Sunday, our 3 man crew headed back out - same spot, same boats, same everything except the wind changed direction slightly and it was FLAT CALM like a swimming pool. Very, very slow day with us trolling for hours covering miles of ocean with several other boats just catching nothing. Finally, I spotted a floating 2x4 - well there is some debate on whether it was a 2x4 or 4x4 but that is another story - so I told Cory to swing by it on the troll. Could have sworn I saw a small dolphin nip one of the baits, then another confirmed nip so I dropped it back and FISH ON! for a short while that is until he came unbuttoned. It really wasn't a very big fish so I wasn't too bummed. So we circle this 2x4 two more times and on the 2nd pass, there we see them - a school of probably 30 - 40 dolphin under the 2x4. We decided to pull up and try to bail them. G put a chunk on a hook and a small weight while we threw chunks of yesterday's bait at the fish trying to get them to strike. They ate every single chunk we threw at them EXCEPT the one with the hook in it! After screwing around with that school for about a half hour we decided to leave and keep trolling. After 1pm we finally landed a 7 or 8 lb cow and that was it.

Cory does battle and wins

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About to take an "ice nap"

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Box off to a nice start!

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Slick sticking one

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Coming over the rail for a boat ride.

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Me and Joe back at base camp

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Great trip, awesome friends. By the end we were all worn out but........all ready to go back!