Saturday, we ran down to the South Tower (A Tower) to try and jig up some amberjack and to look for cobia. We also had ballyhoo on board to do a little trolling in the area. We did not have any live bait and I had a report from Brandon Bartlett that the jacks were real tough to get a bite on even with croaker the previous week. We got to the tower early. We did not get a bite on the jigs. We were leaving when Capt. Rick Wineman showed up with live baits. They ended up catching 5 amberjack. Rick is a nice guy and called us on the radio and offered us some croaker but we did not need any where we made our second stop. We dropped our jigs at the B Tower and the dolphin came out. Steve Martin and I had dolphin jumping all over. Charles fish was pulling harder and he thought that he might have a really big dolphin. His turned out to be an amberjack. The rest of the morning was the same. Very aggressive amberjack and the dolphin kept showing up. At first, the dolphin bit the jigs. Then they stopped that and we found that amberjack chunks suited them just fine. The dolphin were all gaffers. They became so after we broke off a couple trying to make them slingers. Most of them were in the 10-12 pound range with the largest at 22 pounds. The amberjack were 46 to 49 inches long.
We got tired of cranking on those amberjack so we decided to just put out some ballyhoo and troll around the B Tower as there were obviously dolphin in the area. Boats were seeing some marlin to our east. We also wanted to dive inshore and cruise up along the coast to look for cobia. Well, we would troll some circles and then decide on which way to go. Soon after we got baits out, the temperature alarm goes off on the starboard engine. You have got to be kidding. We had the same thing happen a couple of weeks ago. Carter Machinery never found anything wrong with the engine and my diver did not find any obstructions outside of the boat. The engine had been running cool since then. We shut the engine down and checked things out while trolling towards home on the port engine. Well, we knew the engine is fine, checked the water strainer, clear. Charles just cycled the thru-hull valve a few times and presto, good water flow. The long rigger is going off with another gaffer jumping around. Well, close the engine hatch before you bring that thing in the boat. The overheating issue was fixed and we had another dolphin in the box but our minds were made up. Let’s go inshore and look for cobia in case it happens again and this time we cannot get the water flowing (it did not happen again and the boat is running fine but I guess it is time for some fitting work).
We stopped back at the A Tower. Did not see any cobia but did find an amberjack willing to bite a jig, another 49 inch fish. Ran on in and got close to shore around Corolla and worked our way up the beach to Rudee. We saw a lot of bait and rays. Some turtles and a single cobia that entire way. It was small and we did not get a good cast on it. Box of dolphin, sore arms from the amberjack, and we came in on two engines….good day.
We had decided to just sleep in the next day but then Wes Blow called. His boat is at Dare Marina getting worked on and he wanted to know if we were going to be fishing. Charles and I talked about it both feeling pretty tired. We decided that we would take his boat cobia fishing and that he would call Wes back and that they would pick a time (late as possible). Somehow, that turned out to be 5 AM. Next time, I’m picking the time. Something about having to be at the right spot, with the right tide or we would miss it. After 6 hours on a chum slick, I asked is it the right time yet? We were at Stony Lead, no action at all (did have one 12-inch cobia follow a bait up). Finally got tired of that, pulled in the chum pot and cruised around looking for them for a couple of hours. Again, plenty of stuff to see other than cobia.
Pretty weekend on the water. I don’t know where the cobia are. We were back in both days prior to the thunderstorms.
