We went drum fishing with Charles Southall yesterday. Went out mid-morning, came in late afternoon when the squalls started up. No sleep deprivation at all. I am not sure it can really be called drum fishing but we caught drum. We caught 2 red drum, 3 black drum and about 10 very irritating cownosed rays. Stan Simmerman registered his first-ever red drum citation.
We went tautog fishing yesterday….sort of. I got up early and walked down the dock and checked the crab pots. In addition to crabs, there were 2 flounder. The flounder were released, the crabs went fishing. We hit 2 coastal wrecks and caught sea bass. No tautog but we did not give too much of a try. It was really calm, so we buzzed on out to 50 fathoms where we caught a nice mess of blueline tilefish and a flounder. Dogfish are still an issue but they seem to be thinning out.
We fished the Triangle area for tautog. It was slow for us. We ended up catching 8 small tog and some sea bass. A sea bass was the only fish impressive enough to photograph.
We hit the wrecks both Saturday and Sunday. We caught tautog and tagged and released some really nice sea bass both days. We did have to steer around the Russian spy ship parked off of our coast. If the photos seem to indicate that I caught the most and largest togs, well……. None really large. I weighed in one a bit over 9 pounds and had a handful of others over 8 pounds.
We made it out to the tog in the fog yesterday. We got to one wreck and just stayed put. The tautog bite was a bit slow but we ended up catching 18. Small sea bass were plentiful and we caught a good number of cunner. We caught a half-dozen togs with tags already in them and we tagged others.
We had Bobby Kostinas from the charter boat “Top Notch” with us. He had never caught a citation tautog before. Now he has three. We weighed in four citation tog. Bobby caught three of them including the largest at 14.5 pounds.
We ran out and did some bottom fishing yesterday. We caught a single flounder, sea bass to maybe 3 pounds, a hake, and multiple bluefish in the 33-inch range. We spent most of our time fishing for golden tilefish. We caught about a dozen…if you count the head that was all that was left of a little one Johnny Boyd along with a bluefish. The surprise catch was a mako shark that hit Wes Blow’s bottom rig as he was reeling it up for another drift. The monofilament held up and after a number of jumps, we were able to land the shark.
We fished the Triangle Wrecks yesterday morning before the wind blew up. We caught sea bass to about 3.5 pounds, a bluefish, a false albacore and a nice flounder.
I told the guys that the weekend looked fishable. There was some good looking water that should be holding wahoo or we could flounder fish or we could hit the wrecks for sea bass and triggerfish. They all chose sea bass and triggerfish so that is what we caught.
Saturday, I fished with the Boyd brothers: Johnny, Richard and Mike. Johnny is a regular member of the Healthy Grin but this was the first trip for his brothers. After fishing with them, I am confidant that they have been referred to as the “Three Stooges ” more than once.
Sunday’s crew were Wes Blow, Stan Simmerman and JT Hale.
Fishing was similar both days though it was a lot calmer Saturday. We caught limits of sea bass, blueline tilefish, and a bunch triggerfish. Sandtigers were roaming the wrecks as well. They would eat baits meant for sea bass and follow hooked fish up to the surface. They are a handful on the light sea bass gear. Wes decided to put out a big rig and was hooked up in a minute. Or, at least he thought he was. She was just flossing her teeth. It was pretty amazing that he was able to catch that shark with just his leader looped around a couple of teeth. Sharks are designed to loose their teeth just to be replaced by the next in line but this one must have excellent periodontal health. Just sliding the leader off of the teeth made for an easy release. Wes does not need a hook to catch sharks.
We registered multiple citations of triggerfish, tilefish, and shark. The largest sea bass that we weighed was 4.5 pounds.
We went out after wahoo yesterday. It was a slow day for us. We caught a wahoo, a dolphin and missed one other bite. Fishing off of my dock has been more productive, catching striped bass, speckled trout and shrimp most every evening.
