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News › Gulf Stream Fishing
"We are running black now, it is just us and the darkness." said Capt. Brian Harrington of the 42 foot fishing vessel, the Run Off. It is just after 6am and we are standing on the steering deck about 15 feet above the waterline traveling at approximately 23-24 knots. We had left the marina at Morehead City, NC about one hour earlier and already we were about 20 miles south of Cape Lookout Lighthouse.
The trip started shortly after 5am and the view of the ocean is simply black. We could see a couple of boat lights off in the distance but the only light that we saw in front of us was a GPS system monitor. Apart from the crew of two, there were 5 of us on this chartered journey: Danner Ferguson, Bob Ward, Jay Ferguson, James Monroe, and myself, Craig Ferguson. We knew that we were going to go fishing, but we did not know how far out we were going nor did we know what fish we would be fishing for. We were hoping that we would be going all the way out into the Gulf Stream, where the big fish live, but we knew that weather conditions would dictate this. It was with anticipation that I asked Capt. Brian, "Where are we going?" He then pointed to a marked spot on the GPS screen and said "We are going here to this point #777, lucky sevens. It is a point where the earth drops off steeply, just like steps." I could see on the GPS where we were and where the spot was, and that spot was quite a ways out. Then came the all important question from me, "Is that in the Gulf Stream?" He could sense the anticipation in my voice as he looked at me seriously, smiled, and said - "Yes. It is about 63 miles out and will take us about 90 more minutes to get there. This is the best weather that we have had in a long while. The weather conditions are almost perfect." Gulf Stream fishing, here we come! For the next 90 minutes, we enjoyed the boat and the ride out to our destination.
Around 7:20am the yellow and red coloring of a beautiful sunrise showed from an east-south-east direction. I grabbed my camera and shot a few pictures just as the earth's horizon was touched by the rising sun at 7:28am. As the sun rose higher, we saw a distinct line of clouds directly in front of us and the Captain said that this was the Gulf Stream boundary. "The water in the Gulf Stream is warmer and this heats the air above. The clouds form and will be there all winter."
We reached the clouds, and the Gulf Stream, and the boat slowed. The fishing began. The first line went in, then the second, and third. Before all the lines were in, we got a hit. I was the closest to the rod, so I did the honors of hauling in the first catch of the day. It was a Black Fin Tuna about 15 pounds in size. The second tuna was caught about 10 minutes later, then Jay reeled in a Wahoo which weighed probably 30 pounds or more. The first hour of fishing was ending and we had caught 4 fish. Oh, you just knew that this was going to be a busy day of fishing.
We didn't get another bite for about 2 hours. After a rather long lull in the action, we hooked a billfish "sailfish" but it threw the hook out on its first rise to the surface. That could have been an awesome fight, but we will never know.
We had a decision to make: stay in the Gulf Stream waters and take a chance of nothing biting, or head closer to shore and try our luck with some King Mackerels. We decided to stay out in the deeper water and take a chance. Shortly after this, we saw some grassy weeds covering the water and the Captain said that this was good. He said that the weeds provide cover for small fish and this provides feeding opportunities for bigger fish, which attracts even bigger fish, etc. It wasn't long before we caught the first Mahi Mahi (dolphin), then the second, and the third. For a period of over two hours we had two lines in the water with artificial lures (no natural bait) and we took turns reeling them in. This was fun.
We couldn't stay forever as we had to head back to shore. The ride back provided for a very pleasant opportunity to relax and enjoy the ocean. We got back to shore around 5pm. This day was 12 hours spent on a boat fishing in beautiful blue water, in very comfortable temperatures, and on a very comfortable boat.
I can't wait to go back another day.
Posted by Craig on Tuesday, November 04, 2008 (02:31:40) (289 reads)
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