Tidelines – August 4, 2016
I’m trying to get in some more quality time with my boys before the fall semester starts at Cape Fear Community. This year is Owen’s turn to have a one-on-one fishing vacation with Dad, and it looks like my oldest takes a little after me—he seems to be a pretty lucky guy.
Our first stop on the road trip was Bath, NC, where we would be meeting up with Capt. Richard Andrews of Tar-Pam Guide Service. Richard knew we would need an early start to be the first to arrive at his “top secret’ location, so he went to the trouble to arrange accommodations for us at the Inn on Bath Creek so that we could meet him at 5:30 am at the Quarterdeck Marina (instead of trying to drive up in the morning from Wilmington).
Armed with a couple of bag lunches put together by inn hosts Maree and Dale, Owen and I hopped aboard with Richard and headed across the Pamlico River to target summer stripers. We would be wade fishing for the stripers using live croaker (which we would first be catching on simple two-hook rigs baited with squid).
Owen Hurley and Capt. Richard Andrews, of Tar-Pam Guide Service, with a summer striper caught wade fishing in the Pamlico River using a live croaker.
I don’t want to give too much away, so I’m not going to tell you which very large phosphate plant on the far side of the Pamlico River we targeted, and I’m also not going to give away that we pitched our live croakers directly into the cooler, fresh water runoff of this unnamed phosphate plant, but that’s what Richard had Owen and I do, and it worked immediately.
Richard put a live croaker on a hook, showed Owen and I how to throw the bait up in the little eddies beside the water coming out of the three pipes (really it’s four pipes, but I’m trying to throw everyone off by saying three), keep the rod tip up so that the croaker doesn’t get tangled in any rocks and has a chance to swim down a little into the water column, and during this demonstration, on Richard’s very first cast, he got a striper bite.
Owen needed practice, both at casting to the eddies and avoiding getting any slack in the line, but he got the hang of it quick enough and soon was casting, hooking, fighting, and then bringing stripers to the waiting net, all while wading in about knee high water.
Gary and Owen Hurley with some of the mahi they caught pulling skirted ballyhoo. They were fishing out of Hatteras Inlet with Ross Kingery (mate) and Capt. Jeremy Hicks, of Calypso Sportfishing.
Striper after striper came in for both Owen and me. We briefly debated going flounder fishing before deciding to just catch some more croakers for a final striper session, and that’s when the son out-lucked the dad. Owen finished our morning by landing our biggest fish of the day—he did it completely unassisted, and I got to enjoy the parental pleasure of seeing your child laughing, giggling, smiling, and literally squirming with pride.
Owen and I then headed for Hatteras where good friend Capt. Jeremy Hicks, of Calypso Sportfishing, was waiting to take us mahi fishing. Catching a mahi had been at the top of Owen’s fishing wish list all year, and we had a Tuesday and a Wednesday reserved, whatever would be the better weather day.
Unfortunately Tuesday was a blow day and Wednesday was only looking a little better—the big mahi trip was in question.
Jeremy, Ross (Jeremy’s fishing buddy), Owen, and I ate breakfast at Sonny’s on that Wednesday morning waiting for new buoy information to see if offshore conditions had improved. Clearly Jeremy was undecided after the 6:00 buoy update, but Owen unknowingly helped make the decision with an innocent, “So are we going mahi fishing today?”
Jeremy replied with a question that was also intended to be a bit of a warning, “Do you like big waves?”
“I love big waves,” answered Owen. “They’re my favorite.”
Jeremy and Ross grabbed ice and bait, Owen and I double checked the cooler and put on our sunscreen, and almost as soon as Ross and Jeremy got out our six line spread, we had three mahi crashing our baits.
Of course landing mahi from the fighting chair was high on Owen’s list, but I think breaking through the worst of Hatteras Inlet that morning, the bow of the boat pitching up and down, was truly his favorite—he wasn’t lying when he said he loved big waves.
Stripers and mahi and big waves—throw in some chicken nuggets, ice cream, dips in the pool, and a box or two of Skittles and you have a 100% successful father/son fishing vacation.
Owen and I are both a couple of pretty lucky guys.
