Tidelines – May 7, 2015
The sun was just starting to show to my left and the full moon still hung low in the sky to my right as Capt. Daniel Jarvis, of Flat Foot Charters out of Topsail, and I headed out New River Inlet on a beautiful Monday morning in search of some bonito.
Capt. Daniel Jarvis (left), of Flat Foot Fishing Charters out of Topsail, and Publisher Gary Hurley with a couple of the first bonito they caught on the cast while fishing Diver’s Rock.
The bonito hadn’t been hot over the weekend for most boats up and down the NC coast. The bite was sporadic at best, with most action coming off of the troll. Down the coast towards Wrightsville Beach, the spanish (and false albacore) had already moved in with the bonito, and many captains had told me over the years that once the spanish move in there’s only about a week of bonito bite left. So I wondered if the scenery of sun and moon, along with the calm seas and slight wind, were to be the stars of the show on this fishing trip.
Bill Mowery, a 10th grader, with a trunk full of bonito getting ready to make the drive from the North Topsail Wildlife boat ramp to Hampstead.
Daniel and I were joined by Bill, a 10th grader that goes to Daniel’s church (yes, you would be correct in asking why he wasn’t in school on a Monday), and when we pulled off plane about two miles out of the inlet, there was little life to observe. No birds were working, and no bait or fish were making surface disruptions. Diver’s Rock appeared at the time to be a dead sea.
But just then everything wonderful about bonito fishing happened.
We saw our first two big schools of feeding fish a little inshore, and as we pulled up with diamond jigs in hand ready to cast to one of the two melees, the decision was easy. To the right we saw smaller and more numerous splashes (bluefish), and to the left and still off our bow out about 150 yards were larger, less frequent splashes, and then we saw the silhouettes of bonito jumping completely out of the water.
Bill and I sent our casting jigs flying, and mere seconds after landing both of us had the joy of bent rods and screaming drag. Soon our fish were close enough boatside to show color, confirming them to be the desired species, and Daniel’s quick net work (you want to scoop the fish out of the water but then you want to just as quickly flip the fish out of the net and into the boat to try and keep the treble hooks from getting caught up in the net) officially started our morning’s haul.
As soon as the diamond jigs were freed from the fish, they were sent back out, and almost as soon as they hit the water, we had another fish on. The bluefish found our jigs a couple of times, but more times it was those speedy little inshore tuna.
Bill was introduced to me that morning by Daniel as a kid that lived and breathed fishing, and now here he was wide eyed and smiling with bonito blood on his hat, shoes, face, and jacket. The three of us had numerous doubles and triples, and when one live well was full we started filling up another.
Around 9:30 the action started to slow (we actually had to search a little to find our next school to target), so Daniel and I decided why not head in early. The 16-year-old Bill had a little trouble understanding why we would head in if the fish, even if the bite was slower, were still biting.
Then back at the dock it was Daniel’s and my turn to question Bill’s thinking. Daniel’s last instructions to both of us when setting up the trip was to bring a fish cooler. I went to grab mine from the truck, but Bill said he forgot his. However, when Daniel asked him how he planned on getting a dozen or so bonito back to Hampstead, Bill had an answer, “I’ll just put them in the trunk of my car.”
And that might just be the star of this fishing trip. Not the picturesque setting. Not the blistering bonito action. The star may be the memory of Bill loading fish directly into the trunk of his Honda Civic, a car he shares with his father.
Fish on, Bill. Fish on.
