Perseverance Pays
Junio 13, 2021
Hampstead
1 foto
Trip Summary
Trip Summary
Took a group of active duty Army guys out for a half-day charter. Planned to get offshore and look for some kings, but with 15mph northeasterly winds at sunrise, the ocean was far too rough to run far. Made a shift in the plan and trolled frozen cigar minnows over some nearshore structure.
First strike was on the downrigger, and looked like a pretty solid fish, taking a lot of line in an initial run, and giving our angler a real battle... his first time with a big, saltwater species. Sadly, just before the fish came to the boat, it threw the hook and swam off. Another short strike followed a few minutes later, but did not hook up.
The downrigger went off again, and I could tell by how it went off that we had a shark. Turned out to be about a 2-1/2' Atlantic Sharpnose... a fun catch, but not the target species. If he'd been a little bigger, though, he'd have gone in the ice box. Those are really tasty fish!
Things got slow until we picked up a king on one of the surface lines. This one came into the boat, but was, sadly, one inch short of legal size. This would also be the last king for the morning, as things really slowed down.
The seas were really making it hard to do much of anything, so we decided to run inshore and try to catch some Spanish mackerel. The guys wanted to take something home to eat, and Spanish are a great option. It was slow going at first, until we finally found the hot spot.
I had already extended the trip, but clouds were building and the seas were getting rougher, so we pulled in the lines with 17 Spanish on ice.
These guys were a real hoot to fish with, and kept me cracking up for pretty much the whole day.