Disclaimer: No tuna were caught or seen. Report below.
Made the first trip of the 2013 season to Oregon Inlet and fished on Wednesday 1/9. We chose Capt.Ned on the SeaBreeze and knew we were taking a chance as the tuna sightings had been few and far between. I felt I had to go because the rest of the month is a nightmare work wise for me. So off I went, 480 miles to the Outer Banks of NC. The forecast was perfect and the weather held true.
The inlet itself has been a topic of discussion. We had very little swell, no wind and an incoming tide and the inlet seemed very passable. On the way in we marked a shallow spot of 6’ just short of the bridge. This was the lowest we saw. So, for now the inlet does not seem to be an issue. The locals talk of there not being any money from the state to dredge and they are quite concerned about it for the long term. I would expect some issues with any wind out of the North or East, but that is normal for there anyway.
On to the fishing, we put out a 2 rod spread as we were pretty much alone out there and had no reports to go on. Ocean was slick and very little current. There were some slicks and flat spots to check out and a few places looked real fishy. Lots of flippers, a few manta rays and quite a few hammerhead and other sharks milling about. Ned covered plenty of ground and we made one early stop on a few marks. Scott got a little bonita on the first drop and we moved on after that.
To break the trolling doldrums we stopped on some tilefish #'s and in 15 minutes the JigSkinz produced our limits. It was easy jigging with NO current at all. No big fish but I’m sure they will eat well. Back on the troll and basically nothing for the rest of the day.
They may show tomorrow or maybe next week, but they weren’t where we were yesterday.
We were ready
Doubled on tiles
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