On Monday afternoon Captain Felker rolled in for the upcoming trip south. But with a few hours of daylight left there was no reason not to head back to Podickery to see if the fish were still hanging around. Sure enough, the fleet was once again anchored up. And once again, once the lines went in the water the action started hot and stayed that way for an hour or so until thunderstorms chased us back to the dock. Three keepers made their way to the filet table; all around 28-29 inches.
Tuesday was a travel day. After pulling the boat and giving it its mid-season cleaning, we headed down to Cape Charles, Virginia, to learn the ins and outs of sight fishing for Cobia. On Wednesday morning we met up with Captain Kenny Louderback of Fish Freaks Guide Service. Also joining us was First Lieutenant "Salt Life," who made the drive up from Camp Lejeune to get some fishing in before his upcoming deployment to Okinawa.
Kenny was flat out one of the best guides we've ever fished with. He had all of the attributes you could ask for; friendly, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic. In fact, he was so into getting our limit (three fish, minimum length of 40 inches) that he would have stayed out well after the normal 8 hours. But the most important attribute was his ability to find fish. We got underway around 0845 and headed out into the Bay. We spent the day no more than a few miles from Cape Charles, with seas relatively calm and winds less than 10 kts. Those conditions were important to the fishing, as the Cobia are virtually on the surface this time of year. So the calmer the water the easier it is to spot the fish and get up on them before they spook. The technique to catch these fish is pretty uncomplicated. Actually, the key to successful sight fishing is the fishing tower that sits about seven feet above the center console. With a second set of controls up top, the guide can cruise around and see the fish out to 100 yards. From there it's just a matter of the guide sighting a fish, getting up close enough to cast, and throwing a live eel in front of the fish. More often than not the fish will turn and suck in the eel. The guide then sets the hook and hands the rod down and the fight is on! These fish are incredibly strong and will tail walk like a tarpon. But they save their best once they see the net and take off like a torpedo, with nothing you can do but hold on until you have an opportunity to get the fish back to the boat, when it goes back into torpedo mode. In all, we must have seen over 20 fish, one that easily went over 80 pounds according to Kenny. Of the sighted fish we got five hook ups and brought four to the boat; three in the 30-33 inch range, and one monster that went 48 inches and almost 40 lbs and took a good 20 minutes to get in the boat.
The only down side of the trip was the one and a half gainer that Joe's Go Pro took off the upper platform and into the Bay (I think the Russian judge gave it a 7). But we recovered, particularly that evening at dinner when I checked in with our guide for Friday's outing, and was told that he was planning on going for tarpon. So on Thursday morning after picking up our Cobia fillets (Thanks Kenny!!!) we headed for Hilton Head.
So far it was a winning week: keeper Rockfish, big Cobia, cigars at JRs in North Carolina, and a stop at South of the Border to visit Pedro. Unfortunately, the roll ended on Friday when we met up with our guide from Off the Hook Charters. I sensed something was amiss when Nick didn't bother to come out of the boat to greet us. In fact, I had to get on the boat to intro myself. That kind of set the stage for the next hour ... yeah, I said hour.
This guy was the antithesis of Kenny; either he was too cool for school or didn't want to be out there in the first place. To make matters worse, he decided that the water was too muddy from recent rains to look for tarpon, so we'd go after Spanish Mackerel instead. That was fine, except he ought to have known that days before and not gotten our hopes up. But Spanish are fun to catch, so we headed out for a 20 minute run to a spot where he had seen schooling fish earlier that morning. On the way we literally had to pull information out of him. He responded like he was being interrogated. And then the coup d grace. We get to the spot, the guide throws the cast net into a school of bait fish, throws them into his live well, and then discovers that the pump isn't working. So for the next 20 minutes he farts around with the impeller to no avail, then decides that's it for the day. No Plan B, nada. So back to the landing we go.
There's only a few things that need to work on a fishing boat; the motor, the anchor, and ... if you need to use live bait ... THE LIVE WELL. You'd think that would be something that gets checked before going out. Or, perhaps have a spare pump just in case. Or at least show some enthusiasm in the face of adversity. Whatever. Off the Hook Charters loses $475, and Nick loses his tip.
On the up side, Joe's 2/3 of the way to picking up a new Go Pro ... with floaties this time.
Tight lines,
Mikey D Fishing
