Added on Thursday, May 26, 2011  Fish Post

Giggin’ Green And Gold

“It’s a guarantee,” Capt. Andy Wolfe said, bumping the 80 Wide on the bent butt planer rod up to full strike drag. “Something will eat this. You’ve got to watch it and bump the drag back a little when they bite so they don’t break off.”

A ballyhoo beneath a black sea witch with an orange head terminated the end of a 100’ leader behind the #24 planer the rod bore, and with the lever at strike, the heavy outfit took a bend that belied the huge amount of drag the reel needed to halt the planer’s descent into the depths.

Andy, operator of Emerald Isle’s Fraud Giggin’ Charters, had barely turned his back to finish rigging baits and complete his trolling spread when his guarantee was realized.

“There,” I heard, and looked up just in time to see Gary Hurley knock the drag lever back a bit.

The reel’s clicker protested the move, as line began steadily streaming off the reel, and Hurley took a perch over the bent butt outfit, ready to crank when the fish gave him an opportunity.

The heavy braid’s steep angle into the water rapidly shallowed, and seconds later a green streak catapulted from the boat’s wake, tumbling back into the sea only to leap a second and third time.

“Gaffer!” several on board said at once, and I looked at the GPS to realize we’d been trolling a full two minutes before the planer rod put in some work.

The fish stayed up top after its initial aerial display, zigzagging through several of the other lines in the spread as Andy, Eddie Hardgrove, and I cranked furiously to clear the impending tangle.

With the port side lines in the boat, Wolfe instructed longtime friend and fishing partner Teddy Campbell to put the 26’ Jones Brothers Cape Fisherman a shallow turn to that side, keeping the leaping fish clear of the rest of the spread and enabling our starboard lines to keep prospecting for a second bite.

The dolphin’s acrobatics had slowed, but the fish was using its flat sides to its advantage, angling away from the boat like a living planer and swimming steadily. Gary was doing all he could to gain line, but the battle was in a momentary stalemate.

“Do you have him in 2-speed?” Teddy asked from the leaning post, referring to the 80’s powerful low gear.

“Nope, I like seeing Gary work,” Andy replied with a grin, moments before leaning over to punch the button that switched the reel’s gear ratio from multiplier to winch.

“You’ll have to crank a little more now,” the now-sympathetic captain added, “but it should be a lot easier.”

“Yep,” Gary grunted out while he cranked away, inching the gaffer steadily towards the Cape Fisherman’s starboard corner.

As it came closer, the black shape of the #24 planer materialized and popped free of the water.

“Hang on,” Andy said as it neared the rod tip.

Andy uses a planer bridle rig that allows anglers to crank a fish nearly all the way to the boat, and after quickly unsnapping the large clips that fasten the planer to the bridle, he had Gary back to winching the stubborn ‘phin in.

As the fish grew closer, Wolfe donned a pair of gloves and glanced back to me.

“Wanna gaff?” he queried as he took the last 10’ of leader and began wiring the fish.

Of course I did, and grabbed a 6’ gaff and hopped into the corner, planting the big hook in the cow’s head after missing an early opportunity.

With a fat cow dolphin approaching 20 lbs. thrashing in the fish box a mere 10 minutes into our troll, our spirits were soaring.

“Alright Andy,” Gary exclaimed after a photo and a round of hand-slapping, “what’s your next guarantee?”

Hard up for a trip offshore after a winter marred by fishery closures and horrendous weather, Publisher Gary Hurley, Fish Post Sales Manager Eddie Hardgrove, and I (Editor Max Gaspeny) had set up a dolphin trip with Andy and Teddy, and despite a blown forecast that led to a much choppier ocean than we’d expected, the five of us worked our way offshore of Beaufort Inlet last Friday.

Andy had punched in the numbers for the Rise, a well-known blue water hotspot off the Crystal Coast, but he’d pulled back the sticks and set out a spread about four miles inshore, coming across a temperature break and concentration of sea grass the captain felt was too good to ignore.

After we got the planer and the guarantee bait back into the water, as well as a five line surface spread of blue/white and pink-skirted ballyhoo, I glanced around to notice that several sportfishermen and a smaller boat who’d stayed in sight for much of our run offshore had apparently taken note of the change and begun trolling as well.

“Teddy, drive us over some more fish!” Andy exhorted as the spread came back together, and it didn’t take long for the man at the helm to make good.

Moments later, our port outrigger bait disappeared with a splash, and Eddie was quick to grab the rod. Nearly instantly, the clickers on the other outrigger rod and our flat line shrieked to life. And like Eddie, Gary and I wasted little time pulling the 30 lb. outfits from their holders.

“We’re offshore!” Gary exclaimed, grinning as his fish somersaulted from the water. “We’re offshore fishing!”

“We’re not fishing,” Andy added as he worked to clear the planer rod from interfering with the triple hookup. “We’re catching.”

Our trio of anglers did a mahi shuffle in the cockpit as the dolphin swam in and out of the lines, but a short time later, I slung my fish into the box, then held the lid open for Andy to swing Eddie’s much larger gaffer fish into the 320 quart cooler in the Cape Fisherman’s bow a few minutes later.

“Gary’s got a slinger,” Andy said as he dropped the gaff into a rod holder. “Open up that box again.”

I did just in time to see a yellow streak fly through the air and join its thrashing brethren in the box. The sound of three dolphins’ tails beating away on the inside of the box was near musical to a fisherman like myself who hadn’t seen blue water in months, and before that moment I had never quite realized how much I enjoy hosing fish blood off fiberglass.

No strangers to ribbing a colleague (the usual target’s name rhymes with spaghetti), Gary and I took note of how quickly Andy’s words seemed to have worked on Teddy and quickly joined in whenever we experienced a momentary lull in the action.

Five minutes without a strike would invariably result in a chorus of “What are you doing Teddy? Turn right, the fish are over there! No, left! Are you blind?” And more times than not, a fish was hooked by the time we shut up (more likely due to the numerous dolphin in the area than the effectiveness of our words, but you take what you can get).

Teddy took the teasing in stride and held down the helm, and it was a rare quarter hour that we went without a dolphin, if not a multiple hookup, for the rest of the morning, particularly after he and Andy spied some grass coming together in a weedline that was responsible for many green-hued additions to the box.

Though the Fraud Giggin’ bridled planer setup was responsible for our first fish, it had stayed quiet during most of the rest of the morning. As I was rigging a ballyhoo beneath a chartreuse and pink skirt shortly before lunch, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

I looked to the starboard to see Andy dive for the planer outfit and knock the reel’s drag back a bit while the heavy rod bucked.

“This is a big fish,” the captain said quietly at first, watching the braided line pour from the reel into the sea. Then louder he cried, “Big Fish!”

Gary was first to reach the port corner, and he took over Andy’s spot on the gunnel while the fish continued taking line. I think wahoo was the first thing on everyone aboard’s mind, but the fish soon took a jump. Another leap revealed its form with a little more clarity.

“Billfish! Billfish! It’s a billfish,” I kept repeating, having no idea what kind or what size, but positive I’d seen a black rapier slashing across the surface as it broke water a second time.

The fish then took off, darting back and forth across the boat’s wake but somehow not entangling any of the lines we were now scrambling to clear. Apparently growing tired of the water, the fish soon took to the air again. We were then able to get our first clear look at Gary’s adversary, a feisty sailfish bent on not coming to the boat easily.

After Andy pulled the planer off its bridle, the heavy tackle soon took a toll and Andy was wiring up the sail for a few boatside shots and a hook removal. Sail raised and sides vividly lit-up, the fish required little in the way of revival for a successful release. A hard tail kick sent the sail away from the boat and back to making life miserable for the area’s substantial flying fish population.

Adding a billfish to our already considerable dolphin catch only further elevated the boat’s collective mood. The orange/black witch behind the planer had made good on Andy’s guarantee yet again, and that fact apparently hadn’t escaped Eddie’s attention. As soon as the spread was re-set, the salesman took a position on the port gunnel directly behind the planer rod and didn’t abandon his post until it was time to wind in the gear.

The dolphin assault continued, albeit a little slower than the early bite, and Andy had a theory as to why.

“See how it got cloudy?” he asked after a heretofore unheard of 30 minute lull in the green and gold piling up in the cooler. “We need that sun to come back out.”

“Yeah, that helps us see the baits a lot better,” I replied, squinting to try and make sure the ballyhoo in our wake were swimming properly.

“It also helps the fish see them silhouetted on the surface a lot better, too,” Teddy explained.

Somehow that logic was so simple it escaped me, but it makes plenty of sense.

We’d worked our way almost to the Rise, the morning’s intended destination, but radio reports there and at the Big Rock seemed to indicate little action for most boats.

Since we already had a box full of dolphin, we jumped at the opportunity when Andy offered to check out some bottom numbers near the Swansboro Hole to prospect for a grouper.

After rigging up a couple jigging rods, we buzzed over to the bottom which had a little life on the depthfinder but not as much as Andy had seen in the same area the previous week. We decided to check it out anyway, but with several knots of current going across a freshening breeze, getting and keeping our jigs on the bottom 250’ below proved nearly impossible.

After a few attempts, the sun again broke free of the clouds and revealed an attractive-looking weedline near where we’d been jigging.

“Look at that grass,” the captain said, glancing back at the trolling rods. “Let’s give it a shot here for just a minute before we head back.”

“Teddy, follow the grass,” Andy continued, letting a bait he’d speedily rigged under a pink/crystal skirt back into the propwash.

“There he is!” he said pushing the reel into gear, following with a quick “Nope!” as the bait came out of the dolphin’s mouth. Three bite-and-drop cycles later, he lifted the rod and had another slinger dolphin on before we could get a second line in the water.

With that fish in the box, we set out an abbreviated spread, and Teddy continued down the weedline, conveniently laid out fairly close to our course for home. We caught a few more dolphin, releasing them since we already had more than enough fish for the crew.

With a box full of dolphin and a sailfish release to our credit, better results than it seemed anyone talking on the radio had put together, we made the call to point the boat for the inlet. Gary, Eddie and Teddy enjoyed the ride in the plush comfort of Andy’s beanbag chairs while I relived some of the highlights of the day with the captain on the leaning post.

In addition to dolphin, wahoo, tuna, and other blue water gamefish, Andy Wolfe specializes in live-baiting for king mackerel, cobia, and more, and he is a committed grouper junkie as well. His 26’ Cape Fisherman is a no-frills fishing machine ideal for all those tasks.

Give him a call at (336) 880-1945 to talk about a fishing trip, or visit www.emeraldislefishingcharters.com for more information.