Lots of people travel to Cape Hatteras to fish the Gulf Stream waters that lie just a short distance from the coast. Many plan a day or two offshore for an exciting activity during their week long stay on the Outer Banks, while others make the drive just for a day's fishing.

Either way, an offshore adventure can be an event of a lifetime, and you never know what will happen from one day to the next. We can, however, try to predict the best time to fish for a particular species based on years of experience, but it's not uncommon for the Gulf Stream to "throw us a curve" from time to time.

The cooler months tend to produce our best catches of yellowfin tuna. I like March and April in the spring, while preferred fall months for yellowfin are October and November.

The month of November also ushers in one of my favorite fisheries. Our "live bait" king mackerel fishing is unlike anywhere else in the world. You just have to experience it, 20-50 pound kings on 20-pound class tackle. It is a blast.

The last few years have produced some excellent bluefin tuna fishing in the late winter and early spring. February and March have been productive for 80-150 pounders. The bag limits change according to what quota has been caught, but we can normally keep one, and release the rest.

In May, we usually begin to have excellent dolphin (mahi) fishing. We catch dolphin all year, but May through September is the best time.

I like late summer and early fall for wahoos, and we often do well on these lightning fast pelagics.

Hatteras is known for its great marlin fishing too. May through September holds pretty good promise of a billfish bite. I tend to think that our better blue marlin fishing is earlier, May to June, while our white marlin and sailfish bites seem to pick up in July. It is not out of the question to catch any and all of our billfish species through the summer months, and there is always that possibility of a "grand slam," especially in July and August.

This is just a brief overview of what you can expect offshore of Hatteras, throughout the year. For more information, go to the Species Sought page, or feel free to email me with your questions.

Read the latest from the Outer Banks Fishing Report

Ten After Twelve

- 8/31/2010
Hard to believe that tomorrow will be spent preparing for a hurricane, as beautiful as it was today. The wahoo fishing was crazy too.

We started our day with a school of dolphin, which we managed to catch twelve of, then it was off for something bigger. I hoped for a few wahoo bites, but didn't expect it to be as good as it was. In three hours we had landed ten out of fifteen bites! My group said they had enough, so at noon we were outa there! I wish the weather was going to stay nice for the next few days so we could take advantage of this great fishing. Anyway, thanks Dave, for a great day offshore.

August 28 Hatteras Fishing Report

- 8/28/2010
Today wound up being nicer than we had expected, looking at the weather earlier in the week, but the dolphin fishing was simply at it's peak.

The winds were northeast around 15, quite pleasant if you ask me. There was a swell in the inlet this morning from distant hurricane Daniele, but we waited for a set and breezed on across the bar. When we hit the blue water, the dolphin were there waiting on us. We found the mega school of big bailers, with several small gaffers mixed in. Rick, Katrina, Gabe and Madison hammered them hard. I told them that they were natural born killers. They smiled like killers do. Anyway, after the morning flurry, we worked offshore a little further in hopes of a wahoo bite, but as we got in to more current, the seas began to build. I decided it would be better to shallow up instead. Around 1:00 we got a report that the inlet was getting a little nastier, so we decided to wrap it up and head on in. Madison finished off the day by releasing a barracuda. Thanks Rick for sharing the day with us. Can't wait to see you back again!