With a decent weather report, we headed out at 11:30 am towards the Winyah Scarp. Old friends and new on the PainKiller. NE ten knots or less, 3 to 5 was the report. It, once again, was not accurate. The first 30 miles, we made good speed - 47 - 50 mph. The last half we were down to 35 wet mph (wet as we could not outrun the spray).
Lines in and slow trolling. We took a few waves over the bow while trolling. NE closer to 4 with occasional larger waves, stacked every 3 seconds - 4 seconds was more like it. The winds were much larger than predicted, with white caps galore.
No action upstream - nothing - ran the entire ledge - nothing. No bait, no flying fish, nothing except giant moon jellyfish. The jellys popped the planar rod time and time again.
We turned downstream, and had finally had our first knock down. Took the brand new red and black ilander I just purchased and cut the line. Then another knockdown, this time we landed a nice HOO. Unfortunately he didnt have the rig in his mouth or belly. The skunk was off.
And then NOTHING.
Too rough to vertical jig, we kept on trolling. One short strike later, we called it a day. We had lines up and headed for the hill at 5:30 - anticipating a longer than usual ride home. This time we were able to run home at 55 mph - back at sunset.
Maybe the GT Hole would have more life this time of year? Just my 0.02.
Tight lines,
Jason
