Today started off good, and only got better!

On the way out this morning, I saw a dolphin jump in 21 fathoms, so I slowed down to look around. We actually caught a dolphin there, but a school didn't follow up. Ok, well this seems like a good place to start, so we set our spread out, and began to troll. I made it to 25 fathoms, where we caught a wahoo. I circled around and caught another wahoo .... and another. It went like that most of the day, just steady bites, mostly wahoos. By the end of the day, the total body count was 13 wahoos, a half dozen dolphin, one yellowfin tuna, one king mackerel, and one amberjack. Not too shabby, huh?! The boats that went billfishing way south got into some action as well. I don't know what tomorrow's group is gonna want, either is ok with me, but it's hard to leave wahoo action like that!<scr

It was blowing so hard last night that nobody figured we had a chance of getting out today, but that's Hatteras for ya. You just never know.

My group drove all night from DC to go fishing today, eventhough I tried to talk them out of it. Judging by last night's conditions, and the forcast, it looked pretty doubtful. Well, this morning the wind had fallen out, so off we went. These guys wanted dolphin for sure, so my plan was set. I found a streak of grass, and turned southwest on it. A dolphin here, and one there, but nothing great. Finally, I saw four or five jump, a couple hundred yards down the line from me, and it was the mega school. I have never seen people have any more fun fishing than these guys. Anyway, we finished up with our limit and went off looking for something else. We caught one out of a couple of king bites, and also landed a wahoo trolling out. I worked down the beach, and back inshore the rest of the day, and probably had four more wahoo bites, one of which we landed. By then, we had gotten the wind we were expecting, so I let these guys get in and get on the road a little early, they've got a long drive this afternoon! Great day!

Today we were on a marlin mission, but the increasing southwest winds complicated things.

This morning, I had specific instructions to go marlin fishing, and nothing else. Ok, cool, so off we went. I heard the guys back inshore catching dolphin, and a scattered wahoo bite, but it didn't phase me. We didn't fish down the edge long before we hooked one out of a doubleheader blue marlins, on 20# tackle. Things went well for a pretty good while, but the wind made backing down difficult, and unfortunately, the line broke after a great fight with some spectacular jumps. We fished on down the hundred for a pretty good while, and eventhough there was a scattered bite, we didn't see any more fish. My new buddy Sophie wasn't feeling too good, so we decided to wrap it up early, but keep an eye out for something that looked like dolphin on the way in. Well, I found some grass formed up, and we got about 30-35 out of a school. That made everybody feel a little better, and as a bonus, we caught a 25 pound blackfin tuna on our nylon that we were dragging for dolphin. It's windy now, not sure what tomorrow will bring.

Today was action packed, lots of great fishing PLUS a slick calm ocean!

By request, we started out looking for dolphin this morning. We caught about half a limit out of the first school we found, and then it was taking me some time to find another good school. I was trolling down a grass line with a couple of nylons out, and one big bait in a long rigger, just in case. Well, there he was, about a 250 pound blue marlin, made a beautiful strike on my rigger bait, and here we go. After an awesome air show, he settled down, and I got back on him pretty quick. Just as Ben was reaching for the wire, the wire broke down by the hook. Five feet away. What a heart breaker. Anyway, we found another school and finished up with our dolphin. We caught a 35 pound wahoo trolling off, and not long after we got over the hundred, we caught a sailfish. Well, I knew what was coming next, and I was right. About an hour later, we released a white marlin. I trolled back in to the depth where we saw our blue, but never had another encounter. Before heading in, we did catch a 41 pound citation wahoo. It was a great way to finish up the day, but that blue marlin fight is engraved in my mind!

Everything was about the same today, great fishing!

After yesterday's marlin action, most of the fleet headed straight back to where we left off. My group said they wanted dolphin, if we could find some, so I set my aim on them first. The north wind had the grass streaked out, and the dolphins weren't quite as cooperative this morning, but within two hours we had our limit. As we were searching out dolphin, the constant chatter about marlin bites had me on edge, so I was glad to start skipping baits. Unfortunately, I felt like I was fishing down the hundred behind all the other boats, and didn't have as much action as the guys that got there first. We had one white marlin browse through our baits, but never eat, and shortly after, we caught a white that switched off of the teaser and on to the flatline beside it. We also caught a wahoo in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day, and I was glad to be there!<

I don't know how fishing could have been any better today. We had lots of action, meat fish and marlin.

I had a father son team on board today, and neither had been offshore. I think we spoiled them! We started out bailing some dolphin, and when we had 30 or so, they said ''what are we gonna do with all these fish?'' We cleaned up and headed off a little deeper. On the way, we threw out a high speed lure, and landed a 40 pound wahoo on the way to the deep. Once we got to the hundred, it wasn't long before we hooked and jumped off our first white marlin. We saw two more within the next 20 minutes that wouldn't eat. Finally, we found a hungry one, hooked and landed our first white of the day. We wound up with three for the day, the last one we fought in a terrible rain squall, but landed just the same. As a bonus, we caught a 25 pound dolphin out there too. Another great day! Thanks Guys!

Meat fishing was a little slower today, but there were still a few marlin bites around.

We caught a couple of bailers and a gaffer first thing, but I got nervous when the first boat to the marlin grounds hooked two out of three whites. I decided that I would look for dolphin later, and fish for marlin while they were biting. Well, I missed a white marlin not too long after we got there, and next was this wahoo, which Ben and I both called over 60, but the fish cleaner's scales weighed him in at 53. Not too sure about the accuracy there, but anyway, still a nice fish. Next, we missed a sail on a flatline, and a little later had a window shopping white that never decided to bite. After lunch, I figured that I had better go look for some dolphin, but it wasn't till then that I realized, I should have looked harder in the morning! I didn't see a dolphin all afternoon. We did catch a king mackerel at the end.

It was a choppy ol' sou'wester, but it didn't stop the fish from biting!

I had a pretty long discussion about the weather with my group this morning, and they decided, ''lets go for it''. After all, you can always come back. Anyway, I don't think anyone doubts my forcasting, it was just like I expected it to be. I slowed down on the first color change, and we didn't troll two minutes before we hooked a dolphin. Well, the school followed up nicely, and it was one stop shopping again. 60 and done. I jogged off a ways with a fast troll, just to get in deeper water, and then set out our spread. The first few boats to the hundred got marlin bites, and it sounded like it was gonna happen. I got to the edge about five miles above the eastern most boat that had seen a fish, and started working that way. It was definately rougher out there, and after thirty or forty minutes, I got the word to point her towards the beach. It wound up being a short day, but I think everybody was happy that we went, I'm sure those dolphin filets will be just right on the grill!<scrip

Plenty of dolphin were caught today, and possibly the best marlin bite of the season, so far.

We found a couple of schools of dolphin this morning, but didn't hit 'em quite as hard as I would have liked. I had a make-up party, and needed to get plenty for everybody. The change that I was fishing on got kinda crowded so I worked off to the deep in hopes of finding something else holding dolphin, but no luck. I figured, at least by then, most of the boats would be gone from the original spot, and I would get my dolphin later. It worked out fine, and we finished up with a couple more schools. The bad news (for me) was that it wasn't until after 11:00 that I started hearing about the marlin bites, and they were too far away, and it was too late to think I was going to make it down there. It was frustrating not being there, but fun to listen to the action over the radio. There were three grand slams caught out of our fleet today! Anyway, you can't always be in the right place, and my group had a great time, that's what counts. Oh, we did catch a wahoo out of several bites as well.<

No shortage of dolphin today, and tropical storm who?

Last night, I was pretty well figuring that we would have today and tomorrow off, with the forcast of tropical storm force winds. This morning, I think it was blowing 9 at the observation bouy. Needless to say, it turned out to be gorgeous, a few showers this morning, but after that, a beautiful calm July day. Everyone who wanted dolphin got all they needed. They were everywhere, and the only problem was getting away from them after we had a limit! I guess that's a good problem to have. We had a couple more bites trolling around, and caught a king, but fishing otherwise was a little on the slow side.

Everything was lovely in my world today, lots of dolphin, and some good marlin action.

My group was in to the whole marlin thing, but requested enough fish for dinner. Of course, it wasn't till later that they informed me that there were 33 people staying in the house. Anyway, I headed her south this morning, and found a limit of dolphin in 20 fathoms. No problem. I cruised on out to the deep to look for some billfish action, and the grass was so bad that I was over 350 fathoms before I found a clear spot to fish. We started trolling down the beach, after hearing of a few bites in shallower, I knew that I just had to suck it up and deal with the grass. It was just as I expected, but it wasn't long before a 400 pound blue marlin made a stab at the right short rigger, but right after the strike the bait got grassed up. The fish fell back to my right long rigger, and made a swipe at that. I was trying to skip the bait over wadds of grass, but that bait caught grass too. Next, he fell in behind my short shotgun bait, which is on a TLD 25. Hooked up. This fish had it together. He jumped three times at first, and a half hour into the fight made another jump, but after that he stayed down about 50 feet, and paddled to the northeast. I was in reverse for 4 ½ miles before we finally got the leader. My angler did a great job. By the time we finished up with him, the bite had slowed up some, but we did have a white marlin follow a teaser all the way up beside the boat before Ben got a bait to him. We had him on for a few<BR>minutes, but he pulled off. Great day!<sc

Everything is just perfect. The weather is beautiful, the fishing is great, what else could you want!

Things were about the same this morning, as yesterday. Light northeast breeze, plenty of dolphin. We finished up pretty early with them, and went looking for something else. Well, it was a long day on the hundred, no bites, and plenty off grass. I decided to make a pass back inshore, and that worked out with a nice wahoo. The boats that went to the deep south, got in a body of water with a good sign of billfish bites, so I tacked back off, not expecting to find what they were in, but just to try a little longer. We had one fish paddle in on a long rigger, but faded off, I think it was a sail. Anyway, if my partys this week want to go play, it looks like things are shaping up for another shootout. Stay tuned!<sc

We had a fairly light breeze out of the north this morning, which was a contrast to yesterday's weather. Fishing was good as well.

I headed out right down the middle, hoping to start out with some more dolphin action, like yesterday morning. I didn't see any grass, but one dolphin made the mistake of letting me see him, and it was on. Giant school, one stop shopping, 60 dolphin by 7:13. Off we went. We missed a sail in 50 fathoms. Trolled on out, caught a white marlin in 85 fathoms. We fished around for a while before we caught one out of a tripple on the sailfish. It was crazy, I was trying to get my right long rigger away from one, and at the same time, I had one on my right teaser. Also at the same time, Ben was hooking one off the right flatline. Surprisingly, after getting my teaser and big bait out of the way, I never got a bite out of the other two. We did miss one other fish that I couldn't identify, most likely a white. Anyway, I fished hard for the blue marlin to complete the slam, but never got a shot. We did catch a nice wahoo in 100 fathoms too. Great action!

Dolphin fishing was as good as it's ever been this morning, but the weather has been better.

I didn't even take a lunch to work this morning because it was blowing so hard, I was 95% sure we wouldn't go out. Thank God for Nabs. Anyway, I had a bunch of hard heads that wouldn't take no for an answer, so off we went. I don't think they were dissappointed in the accuracy of my forcast, it was plenty rough. As soon as we slowed down, however, we got dolphin bites. They did a great job bailing dolphin in the extreme conditions, even the ones that were under the weather participated in the dolphin kill. We limited out on bailers, and not a minute too soon, the thunderstorm from heck was bearing down on us. It rained and blew and thundered for thirty or forty minutes, and when I got through the bulk of it, I could see more on my radar forming up to the south west. I decided that Hatteras village was where I wanted to be, so we called it a day. Great catch.

Another day of great fishing off of Hatteras.

I didn't fish yesterday, due to scheduled maintenance, but the report I got was plenty of dolphin, and miserably rough. The forcast was for the same today, so we were delighted to find a comfortable ride out this morning. I found some streaked out grass, and the bailer dolphin had taken up residence there. There were only two men in my party today, and it's a little hard to keep a school going short handed, but we managed to get close to our limit. I trolled offshore from there figuring we would get the last few that we needed, and hopefully a wahoo in the process. The wind had started breezing pretty good, and it didn't take long for the ocean to get rough. We scrapped a few more dolphin, and only needed one more for our limit, and wouldn't you know, we caught a 37 pounder! After that, my guys decided it had been a good morning, and they were ready to head back, so off we went. It sounded like pretty fair billfish action further offshore.

Today you had your pick of billfish action, or meat fish action. Both were great, but in different locations.

My party definately wanted to take back some fish, so we started out hunting for dolphin first thing. We caught a wahoo in the process, and then got on to a mega school of bailers, one stop shopping, as we call it. Anyway, when we finished up, I steamed offshore because this marlin fishing was already going off. The southern most boats in the fleet did the best, the top boat released eight whites and two sails! We started out fifteen miles northeast of the best of it, but there were plenty of bites where we were too. Anybody that knows anything about fishing, especially marlin fishing, knows that some days you get your turn, and other days, somebody else gets your turn. There's nothing fair about it. All that being said, we didn't get many shots today. We missed one white marlin, and had another one that got lost on the switch. I gave up after five hours, and trolled back inshore. It worked out because we caught three more wahoos and a sailfish! All in all, a great day!

Dolphin fishing was off the hook today, and another good sign of bills too.

We set out on a patch of grass with a nice school of big bailers. After fifteen or so, Ben pitched a bait to the biggest dolphin we've caught this year. After the hookup, on a TLD, he jumped over two patches of grass, fifteen feet wide, and proceeded to tow half of the grass line with him. Ben managed to get most of the grass off the line, and things were under control, until a 20 pounder swam up with the one on the line. We picked him off, and the had two to deal with, and they wanted to stay close together. Well, that wasn't so bad until the squall came. It was pouring down rain, and blowing 20, just to make things challenging. We got the smaller one, and after a 48 minute fight, landed the big one, a 54 pounder. After that, the line we started fishing on was wrapped up with boats, so I went to the deep to look around. We caught a couple more gaffers, and missed a white marlin, but things were really a little slow. My party wanted more dolphin, so I went inshore to see what I could find. We found the mother load of bailers, and limited out. Of course, once I got back inshore, the marlins started biting, offshore, and to the south, but my crowd was happy, and we had a great day.<sc

Fishing was good overall, with a good showing of marlin, and good showing of meat fish for most.

We decided this morning to try for some dolphin first, and with some luck, we could try for billfish later. Well, plan A went great, and we found a couple of schools of bailers, and each school had a couple of big gaffers. Once we had enough dolphin, off to the deep we went, in pursuit of a marlin. We were a pretty good ways east of most of the marlin action, so all I could do was work that way, and hope for the best. We had a couple of pretty heave squalls to dodge as we worked southwest, but we finally got clear of them. We caught a couple more gaffers as we fished along, and we landed a 40 pound wahoo as well. And thats when it happened. I leaned over to snap a shot of the wahoo, and my old digital camerea finally bit the dust. I almost got it past the short rigger baits when I chunked it. I ordered a new one over the weekend, so hopefully it'll be in soon. That's the major breakthrough. Anyway, we never saw a marlin, but there were quite a few caught to the south.

What a beautiful July day. Almost flat calm, kinda cool, and decent enough fishing.

Since dolphin fishing had been slow the last few days, I headed down the beach, in hopes of some billfish action. We fished an hour or two before we missed two shots at a white marlin, and another fifteen minutes before we had a brief encounter with a second fish. I got information about some dolphin action fifteen miles to the northeast, so I reluctantly gave up on the marlins, threw out a couple of high speed lures, and trucked it on up the line. I always hate fishing behind a bunch of boats, but we managed to scrap out close to half a limit of dolphin, so the move was worth while. Just before we picked up to come home, we missed a shot at a sailfish on a flatline. Oh well, we'll get him tomorrow!

More marlin action offshore!

When I got to the dock this morning, I had already heard that the marlin fishing was great yesterday. I also had heard that things were a little slow in the meat department. I tried to feel out my party to see what they wanted to do, and marlins were fine with them, they fished yesterday, and had enough meat to take home. <BR>We headed off, in the midst of numerous rain squalls, to the hundred. It wasn't long before we had a white raise to a shortrigger. We got him switched off, but it just wasn't meant to be. Off we went, and not too long before we were hooked up to a doubleheader whites. We got the first one, and backed to within ten feet of the leader on the second, before he made a lucky jump, and...gone. Now, that was the extent of our action for the day, but there were other boats that raised fish during the rest of the morning, and afternoon. I heard of three blue marlin caught in the fleet, quite a few whites, and a handful of sails. I think maybe the top boat had four fish. Nothing changed from yesterday on the meatfish, just a very scattered dolphin and wahoo.<BR>I apologize for no picture, I use an ancient digital camera, and today it showed me the image I took, but it doesn't appear to be on the card. With a little luck, my wife can find it.

This morning, my group gave me the green light to head on down to the marlin grounds, so off we went. There was no shortage of billfish action.

We set out and within a few minutes, hooked and jumped off a sailfish. Next, a blue marlin made a pass at a couple of baits, but no bite. After that we had a white marlin knock out a couple of big baits, and got stung before we could switch him off to a little bait. Next, a 350 pound blue marlin crashed my teaser, and without my permission, took off with it! Ok, so the next bite was a double header whites, and finally we broke the ice with one of them. Next, I had another sail pick up and drop a dink bait, never to be seen again, and finally, we had what I'm sure was another white pulling drag, and almost in the chair before coming unglued. So you see, we had good luck, but bad luck too. During the day, we did find a couple of schools of gaffers, and landed a pretty nice catch of them, the biggest I'll say was 30. See ya Thursday!<scr

Somebody said fishing was slow yesterday, but it straightened out for today, great fishing.

There were several grass lines formed up today, one in particular was holding a lot of bailers. We started to the south of most of the fleet, and picked at a few fish. I found out that the boats 5-10 miles up the beach were limiting out, so I worked that way. When we got there, it was pretty well picked over, so I worked off looking for something else. We found a float with several gaffers and a nice school of bailers, and we caught a handful there. We found a piece of bamboo later with another good school of nice size fish, and did pretty well there too. We wound up with a nice catch, close enough to a limit that you could say we were there. We shortened up the ride a few miles, and caught six or seven kings in the process. The big news is that a few boats that headed down to the deep south had excellent marlin fishing, mostly blues and whites. I'm not sure what my group is gonna want to do tomorrow, so we'll see. <BR>When I get in from fishing tomorrow, we are heading back to Chapel Hill to pick up Andrea on Wednesday, so I will probably be tardy with tomorrow's report.

Sorry, no fishing today, I had something way more important to do!

We took our daughter, Andrea, to Chapel Hill today for basketball camp. I figured it was best that she got to know Coach Hatchell and some of the players, seeing how she'll be playing there one day anyhow (a dad's allowed to dream big, right?). Anyway, It was a busy day, and we made it home safe, and I'll be swinging away tomorrow, so check back in. Pictured here is Andrea with Ivory Latta, UNC point guard.