Fished Friday and Saturday on the Sea Breeze out of OI Fishing Center. Saturday was a bust so we’ll just deal with Friday.
Surprisingly left the dock at 5:30. Ran the inlet in the pitch black, cool, more time to fish. Get on the numbers and there are kill slicks everywhere, birds picking and marks on the machine. First drop nothing. Second drop, five anglers, five bites and I come tight. Fish peels off about 200 yards on 32# of drag, stays up top and does some big head shakes, throws the hook after about five minutes.
Scoot around, find a few marks, drop. Come tight again, this time the fish stays down a bit. A few nice long runs and I can tell it’s a good fish, settle in at 30# of drag on the Accurate 600N and 500G Jigging Master, no harness, just a plate. After a good half hour I get on top of the fish and go to work. Taking the occasional wave over the back, 4-6’ seas and 15 kts. of wind blowing it in your face, the Outer Banks in January. Get the fish to color twice and then an extremely violent shake and the main line parts, 100# JB hollow, shark attack is my gut feeling, happens all the time with the blackfin around here. When you settle in just out of color they are an easy target.
During my battle we start spotting tuna black backing and surfing down sea, singles doubles and more. Riding almost every wave looking for prey. The boys had started throwing plugs and every once in a while I’d here Scott, “Holy !!!” did you see that. A 400# fish was piling on his plug, bucket mouth wide open throwing a wake. Two smaller fish charge and blow the plug up. It was mayhem.
I get rerigged with a new leader and take a drop, tight again. Fish picked it up on the drop and stayed up top. I could tell it wasn’t as big and we all thought we may get to take some meat home. That little fish settled in and battled hard eventually losing out to the gaff after about a 1/2 hour. It went 62" and maybe 140#. Bluefin coming home, time to have some fun.
The fish were still surfing and I now needed one on the plug.
Awesome fish Courtland- i wanted to go so bad, but the girlfriends birthday weekend conflicted- with the Jerry Brown hollow braid are you able to make leaders straight off the braid like you do with dacron and wind-on leaders?
Awesome fish Courtland- i wanted to go so bad, but the girlfriends birthday weekend conflicted- with the Jerry Brown hollow braid are you able to make leaders straight off the braid like you do with dacron and wind-on leaders?
Yes it’s the same idea. I use a variety of connections based on what I’m fishing for. It is typically better to use a loop to loop connection when fishing the way I do. I’ll use what is called a Page Ranking knot for jigging. The loop to loop is better for casting and changing leaders quickly.
The TRQ9 was sent down for us to test. Preliminary tests showed that the reel was to stiff for jigging, so we had Penn remove some of the sealed washers from the inside of the reel to loosen it up. Our group felt that the handle is to close to the body of the reel and the bail arm has an issue or two. It’s like it doesn’t fully open. I was not a big fan of it although it has a nice drag curve. Jigging is very hard on gear and the angler, things need to work and feel just right. I did not care for it as it was. I’m sure they will change it up if they are really concerned about the jigging crowd.
I took the trip with my son to join courtland and his friends.
thanks courtland for the invite. Drove all night thurs to meet them at the boat on fri.I knew two things about jigging bluefin tuna jack and ****. The day was as he described incredible by any standards. Courtland was nice enough to let us use his gear and teach us the ways of the Jig and pop. (he explained patiently that the zebco i brought might not cut it with these fish) LOL Then he went on to absolutely school us on how its actually done. As he was the only one of five guys to actually come tight on a fish and did it 4 or 5 times throughout the day.
I learned alot and was greatful for the oportunity to learn and share the experience with my son. I have great pic of a wave taking courtland in the face as we were backing down on the fish. I’ll post it here so you can see it wasn’t shorts and t-shirts sit back and drink style of fishing. My arms are still sore from the simple effort of repeated trips of the jig to the depths.
Nice to meet you and your friends courtland, thanks again.
Oh ya the boat we fished on was to die for
“Destiny” 35ft
Contender and “Scintilla” 20ft Keywest, Manning SC
Business will keep me busy for the next 2 weeks or so.
I’ve had quite a few inquiries about going up there. There is usually room for one or two, that is why I’ve posted these trips up for the last 3 years. Every year I get one or two that join. This year seems to have a bit more interest. If you want I’ll arange a CF.com trip for maybe Presidents Weekend or some time that everyone has a day or two off.
Post up here or PM me if interested. Room, food and lodging is usually about $500/day.
That’s a great fish, but how ironic is it that you can catch and kill a fish thats close to being an endangered species, and we can’t keep a GD bsb. Unfreakingbelieveable.
That’s a great fish, but how ironic is it that you can catch and kill a fish thats close to being an endangered species, and we can’t keep a GD bsb. Unfreakingbelieveable.
