Tidelines – May 22, 2014
Capt. Wayne Crisco, of Last Resort Charters out of the Topsail area, with a 4+ lb. spanish mackerel caught on a 1 oz. diamond jig while fishing a few miles out of New River Inlet.
If it feels good, then do it again.
That was my motto this week, and it brought me back to the public boat ramp at the North Topsail high rise bridge on a Monday morning. Just the week before I had met Capt. Daniel Jarvis there for the bonito run, and this morning I was reuniting with long-time fishing friend Capt. Wayne Crisco of Last Resort Charters out of the Topsail area.
Wayne had been hot on the bonitos, too, but just a few days before our meeting his clients had enjoyed sight casting to near-citation spanish mackerel. Wayne was seeing large schools of large spanish actively feeding as they moved down the beach, and I wanted in on this action.
Just like a week before with Daniel, my trip with Wayne fell on a slick calm day, and it was just a quick run out and north before we pulled back on the throttle to take a look at the fish finder reading some bottom that he liked to target. We idled around for only a few minutes before noticing the first surface signs of life, a school of spanish feeding on top between us and the coast.
The visual of skying fish immediately got our blood pumping, and that initial rush was then quickly propped up on only the second cast by a sharp and strong tug on my line as I reeled my diamond jig back in. I suspected spanish from the weight of the resistance, but those pesky blues can easily disappoint you when spanish fishing, letting you think spanish mackerel until finally showing themselves boat side to be taylor blues.
Not today, though. First fish was spanish. Second fish was spanish. And third fish was spanish, with all of them in the 3-4 lb. range. Fish were breaking all around us at times, moving in a southerly direction, and for a while it didn’t seem to matter what direction you cast. What did seem to matter, though, was the size of our diamond jigs. A 4+ lb. spanish wrecked the 1 oz diamond jig that Wayne had tied on, and in a rush to re-rig he tied on one a little smaller. That smaller diamond jig came back (repeatedly) unmolested, so Wayne got back to the 1 oz. size and right away began hooking fish again.
That extended spanish blitz was the highlight of our morning, but we stayed out and continued to find smaller schools of spanish which had now moved out further off the beach. I was doing a little balancing act, standing up on the bow of his boat and making small talk while we continued to hook the occasional spanish, when a freight train tried to rip the light-action Century rod out of my hands (yes, a Century rod plug here to thank Ryan White for the sweet 7’6” Slingshot). This fish not only had a noticeably stronger strike but also more weight, more drag pull, and longer runs, and as suspected a modest bonito finally presented itself to the landing net.
An odd settling in of late morning fog made it harder to spot fish on the surface, so Wayne and I decided to head back in. We had plenty of fish in the cooler, and since Wayne offered on the ride in, I decided to let him clean all the fish. We set up shop in the back of One Stop Bait and Tackle (thank you, Jeff, for the bags and ice), and before long I was on the short drive back to Wilmington with plenty of fillets (and some sashimi) for the next few evening dinners.
As is often the case when fishing with good friends, the great fishing action that Wayne produced in many ways just served to complement the friendship and the banter that’s produced on these types of trips. Wayne and I caught up on missed time and made plans to do it again real soon, with our next trip focusing on big flounder (Wayne’s a tournament regular) and/or some red drum and trout that he likes to target during the summer months.
And since that first trip with him felt so good, I think I’ll do it again, including have him clean all the fish.
