Just me and the wife headed east on Wednesday Dec. 27th for a little R & R and to "hunt" big striped bass out of Oregon Inlet on the outer banks of NC.
Fishing was to take place on Thursday and Friday. We got a late start on Wednesday which put us getting there around 2:30 am and going to sleep around 3am.
Day 1
Thursday fishin also got off to a late start. We hemmed and hawed around, ate breakfast, afterwards I had to put line on two spinning reels. We finally hit the water just before noon. Water temp was 48 degrees which was a little on the cool side so I decided to go South from the inlet.
We rode a little ways until the temps climed to near 50 and put out 3 trolling lines with plugs. Not too far in one of the clickers go off. It turns out to be a big bluefish of around 10 lbs.
Released and lines back in, we ran across 4 more of these toothy critters. They are so agressive once in the boat that its almost to the point of "dangerous" to remove the hooks! I ended up with a beatiful site on the deck of my V-21 after releasing all 5 blues ;D 8):
After relocating to a spot where we thought the stripers might be hiding, the clicker let loose once again. This time the rod had a 24 lb striper on the business end, which I happily lip-gaffed, snapped a pic and put in the fish box:
That was it for day 1. Around 5pm we headed back to the hill and went in for a shower and some warm food.
Day 2
Got out a bit earlier on day 2. Was able to hit the water around 8:30am and decided to motor north. Saw a few boats, very few birds and lots of cold 47 degree water. I got a call from a bud on the radio and they had reached warmer water even further to the north. Actually about 3 miles north of us. Soooo, we decided to go find them. *MAJOR PROBLEM* I though they said they were south of the inlet, but they were actually north of us! I realized this after traveling about 8 miles south! So we continued south back to were we fished the day before. Nothing for a while then it was clicker-time once again! Nice run on a big fish. I had vowed to let my wife catch the next fish - blue or striper! Soooo, she did a very good job and caught a bigger striper than I have ever thought about catchin! I weighed the fish on bathroom scales over a day later and it was still a fat 27 lbs and just over 40".
Here's another shot of the big one:
Me holding the big one:
Me holding both fish:
We hung around that spot for a while and had nothing. Eventually motored north again and nothing. Talked to several people who caught nothing both days, so I felt we did pretty well. It was lots of fun!