Tidelines – November 13, 2014
Alan Willis bills a sailfish landed by Fisherman’s Post Sales Manager Joshua Alexander. The sail fell for a black/red-skirted ballyhoo in 200’ of water off Morehead City while Alexander was fishing with Willis and Capt. Thomas Wood on the charter boat “Dancin’ Outlaw.”
Fisherman’s Post doesn’t fish out of the Morehead City/Atlantic Beach area nearly enough, so we welcomed an invitation from Capt. Thomas Wood of the charter boat “Dancin’ Outlaw” for a November offshore trip looking for wahoo and sailfish.
With everyone on staff at Fisherman’s Post needing to control spending before the holiday season, a Saturday night hotel room was out of the question, so we all met at the Hurley house Sunday morning at 3:00 am. Individual coolers and gear were quietly condensed and packed into the Fisherman’s Post Explorer, and then just as quietly we pulled out of the dark driveway and made way for 17 North.
You can make great driving time starting a trip at 3:15 am in the morning, so it was comfortably before our 5:15 meeting time that we pulled up to the Morehead City waterfront where Thomas and his mate Alan Willis had the lights on and everything ready for us to pull away from dock.
Our run to the Gulf Stream that morning took us a couple of hours, but they were easy hours on a sportfisher, where some opted for catching up on sleep and others for watching the sun rise. Before long the engines pulled back and Alan put out our spread, mostly an assortment of ballyhoo skirted in various colors.
Though the fishing is still great through November and into December, it was a slow day of bookings for the waterfront fleet, as we found ourselves all alone out there at first. Not much time passed before our first hook-up, a wahoo slashed at the planer bait, tripping it but not getting hooked, but then very shortly after found the hook in a red/black skirted ballyhoo trolled short off of the starboard outrigger.
My standup battle began, the lines were cleared, and before long Allan was wiring and gaffing the 30 lb. class wahoo. The fish, with vibrant stripes and a mouth full of teeth, disappeared into the fishbox, and Max, Joshua, and I, after only 15-ish minutes of fishing, knew that we would be having fresh wahoo sashimi for dinner.
Max Gaspeny with a wahoo that attacked a green/crystal-skirted ballyhoo behind the “Dancin’ Outlaw” while trolling 40 miles off Morehead City with Capts. Thomas Wood and Alan Willis.
Our action the rest of the day wasn’t nonstop but it was steady. We raised four sails and successfully released two of them. And in addition to plenty of wahoo in the box, we also managed to find a cute little blackfin. The joke on the boat was that the small blackfin cleaned would produce a total of one sushi roll per angler.
Our sailfish put on strong aerial shows, and the wahoo fought hard and head shaked all the way to the boat, so a little past 2:00 we called the day a success, pulled lines, and headed in.
As I stated at the start, Fisherman’s Post doesn’t fish out of the Morehead City/Atlantic Beach area enough, so all the way to dock we took in the sights and sounds. A few trucks could be spotted fishing the point at Cape Lookout, some smaller boats were chasing a school of bluefish under an army of working birds in the inlet, anglers were lined up on the beachfront at Fort Macon State Park, and some boats were fishing along the port wall and others along the channel line. Basically, the Morehead regulars were finding any number of fall fish to target on this pretty November day.
So our thanks go out to Thomas and Alan for their hospitality and putting us on some memorable fish. And as for our Morehead fishing frequency? We already have spring plans to head back out on the “Dancin’ Outlaw.” Perhaps an April outing may give us a chance to find some more wahoo and even add some yellowfins to the fishbox. I hope you, too, decide to increase your Morehead fishing frequency, and you’d be smart to make Capt. Thomas Wood and the “Dancin’ Outlaw” part of those plans.
I don’t have a good transition here, but I want to finish my Tidelines saying goodbye to Capt. Caleb Batson and sending my prayers to his family and friends. My relationship with Caleb actually started in the classroom. He was one my early students at Cape Fear Community College, taking a business writing course. Caleb in the classroom made teaching more fun for me, just as running into him made my trips to the Carolina Beach Municipal Docks more fun. I, like everyone else, can make no sense out of losing him so early, but I’m thankful for the time I had with him.
In that spirit, I hope the rest of you make the most of your time together (and time on the water) as we head into the holiday season. Go fishing. Make a memory.
