Had a gracious invitation to fish with pathologyman of the legendary Aut-Top-Sea legacy in the Pirate’s Cove Boat Builders tournament on his 59’ Spencer, Bi-Op-Sea (www.biopsea.com). Just as pathologyman had a top notch charter operation in Charleston with Reid and Michael, he has managed to put together a top notch operation in Manteo as well with Jesse and Chris. On top of that, between himself and the other guys on the boat has a solid tournament team ready to fish.
I could only fish Saturday, but the rest of the guys fished on Friday and went 1-2 on whiteys. They saw several more cutters but couldn’t get them to eat.
On saturday, the tournament didn’t have lines in until 9am and we had to sit on the fishing grounds for an hour watching hundreds of birds working around us like crazy. We were about to go nuts as we listened to the charter fleet taking shots on sailfish left and right. One boat was 1 for 8 on sails as the tournament fleet floated around waiting for the whistle. We stared at our watches every 30 seconds hoping that some how, the long hand would end up in the 12 o’clock position, but it seemed like an eternity passed by. Then 9am came and lines were in the water in the blink of an eye. But it was at that exact time that the sails took a siesta and we had to play the waiting game.
Then about an hour into the contest, the flat gets hit and we have a sail dancing around for a few seconds. Another angler (Mike) works the long rigger on that same side and get’s another sail to attack. The first one spits the hook and even taunts us by jumping towards the boat a coule of times after the hook pulls out. We land the first one, but celebration is kept to a minimum as the lead boat on day one has 3 on the board already from the day before.
Then we play the waiting game for a couple more hours. We chase birds all day and do what we can to get a bite. Then it happens. We get a flat line bite but the fish is missed. All anglers to their stations ready for bite #2, drags in freespool,
