Added on Thursday, December 7, 2023  Fish Poster

Guide Times – A Sight for Yellowfin Eyes

We were all by ourselves. The whole charter fleet was north of us in 82-degree water, and we had located a little eddy of 72-degree water about a half mile wide, and that’s where we had found yellowfins surfacing in short feeding frenzies and more than willing to attack our casting lures.

“You really have to trust the process,” explained Capt. John Berquist, of DrumBeat Charters out of Oregon Inlet, a friend who had me excited since early spring to join him for sight-casting to yellowfins, but weather and conditions had postponed that trip until early August. “If you find the fish, this technique works well. You catch fish when you find what you’re looking for. You just have to put in the time to look.”

Our day started at 5:00 am at the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center boat ramp. I rode with John, pulling his Pair Custom 24 Deep Vee with a tower and powered by a 350 Suzuki, and we met Bryan Whitehurst, of Green Tails Seafood, and Yury Kishkevich, friends that often fish with John when he doesn’t have a charter.

Part of the process, I had found out the evening before over dinner, was to compare notes on where the fish were the day before our trip. Both Bryan’s commercial contacts and John’s charter friends had found fish north, and since north meant we were looking at a 50-mile run to the triple zeros (off Corolla), John wanted to get on the water by 5:30.

Our conditions were a little borderline for sight-casting to yellowfins. We had a southeast wind at about 15 mph, and while the waves near the beach were a comfortable 2-feet every 8 seconds, out at the Gulf Stream we found 3-feet every five seconds. More than being comfortable, though, we needed visibility.

“A wind with south in it makes the Gulf Stream calm,” John told me. “The biggest problem is when the wind is north. When there’s any north in the wind, the north wind against the Gulf Stream makes it choppy. Even if it’s fairly calm out, wind going against the Gulf Stream makes whitecaps, and since we’re sight fishing, whitecaps mean we can’t see fish.”

When we arrived, maybe six sportfishers were in sight in the distance. John climbed up in the tower, put the boat barely on plane at about 22 mph, reminded everyone to start paying attention, and began a southerly course zigzagging between 600-feet and 2500-feet of water.

John was loosely going from spot to spot where he had caught fish before, but he wasn’t set on heading to any destination. The idea was to see birds or fish, as well as grass mats or pieces of trash—anything that might hold a fish. We also wanted to find water that the tuna prefer.

“Generally, when we’re looking for tuna, we’re looking for that dirtier, green water,” John had explained the evening before, “and in the summertime, I’m always looking at satellites and trying to find water that’s a little cooler than everywhere else, as opposed to the cold months when I’m trying to find a little finger of warm water.”

We zigzagged for miles without seeing any birds, any fish, or anything floating in the water that might hold fish. We also weren’t finding the right water, but remember…you have to trust the process.

To start at the beginning of the process, John, Bryan, and Yury first got the idea of sight casting to yellowfins from the charter fleet. On days the big boats weren’t catching tuna, they would often fly a kite, and flying a kite and casting a lure, they thought, are kind of the same thing. You’re getting to the fish without having to go over top of them.

They also knew anglers in the northeast were casting, as were a number of Japanese anglers, so they started pulling info from anyone they could. On those first trips, they found fish, but they lost them before getting them to the boat.

“We probably broke off 50 fish before we figured out we needed to use ball bearing swivels and a split ring that goes to the lure,” John remembered. “In deep water, the yellowfins go down when hooked, and they end up in a death spiral. That’s how we were breaking off lures. Without a swivel, the death spiral was binding up the leader. If you twist a leader 100 times, it’s going to snap.”

The process, they also discovered, included fine tuning the gear, and the go to setup they now use is a Century GT rod with a Shimano 20,000 Stella, 60 lb. braid, 80 lb. fluorocarbon leader, the ball bearing swivel and split ring, and then a Strategic Angler lure.

The Strategic Angler lures come from Merv Rubiano, a Nags Head-based lure manufacturer who hand paints everything he sells, and he also happens to join John, Bryan, and Yury regularly. The Strategic Angler lures we were mostly using, Naias and Frantics, weren’t really topwaters. They were more like stick baits because they’ll sink if you let them sit. Each was anywhere from 6 to 8-inches long, could be thrown a good distance, and had an erratic action.

It was now after 12:00 noon, we had covered miles and miles of water, and none of us had even touched a fishing rod, but remember…you have to trust the process. Another big part of trusting the process is resisting the temptation to put lines out and troll while you’re looking.

“You can’t do both,” John was quick to point out. “You can’t troll a 6-rod spread and try to look for fish to catch by casting because by the time you get your whole trolling spread in and zoom over to them, they’re gone.”

Maneuverability, though, was only one of two problems with trolling. Trolling can push yellowfins down, so you can’t troll yourself, and it’s best not to be around other boats that are trolling if you’re hoping to see yellowfins on the surface.

By now there were no boats in sight. Someone mentioned the possibility of changing tactics to go bottom fishing for tilefish, and then suddenly Yury yelled that birds were off the port side. A group of shearwaters were actively diving up and down over what we could now confirm were tuna busting the surface. As excited as I was, I knew that as the new guy, I needed to follow their lead on how the system worked.

Without discussion, both Yury and Bryan grabbed their rods and made way to the bow of the boat. They’re both right handed, so they each staged up on the right side of the bow, opened the bail, put a finger on the line, and made sure the lure was the right distance from the rod tip. The idea, of course, is that as soon as the boat comes off throttle, they are ready to throw because you may only get 1-2 shots before the fish go down and you have to find them again.

Yury cast first, and then he scooted to the left and began ripping the lure across the water’s surface as fast as he could reel. Bryan cast almost immediately after, throwing a little more to the right than Yury’s cast so not to cross, and he, too, stepped to the left and reeled as fast as he could. Yury had a blow up and then another blow up, but the treble didn’t catch. Bryan’s first blow up came tight, and we had our first yellowfin hookup of the day.

“We try not to get doubles,” John told me as I moved into position with my bail open, finger on the line, and the lure the correct distance from the rod tip. “Once we hook up, we need to focus on that one fish because the sharks are so bad. We’re trying to get that fish in as quick as we can.”

To help get the fish in quickly, John chased the fish down, and once close, John came down from the tower and took the boat out of gear. When enough progress was made, he put the boat back in gear to surf the fish up next to the boat for the gaff shot. The time was 1:15 pm, and we were 20 miles south of where we had started the morning looking for fish. Success had certainly been a process.

With one yellowfin in the box, everyone wanted a second and was searching in all different directions for any activity, and for the next hour, each of us contributed by pointing out fish or birds or both. John would see a pod of fish in the direction of 11:00, or Bryan might spot bird activity in the direction of 3:00, and we would zoom over, much like you run-and-gun when false albacore or bonito fishing, and toss on them as soon as John slowed the boat.

If you’re thinking that often it’s a better strategy when albacore and bonito fishing not to run-and-gun but to sit quietly and wait for the fish to resurface, then John agrees. “We haven’t found a way to pattern the tuna, so it’s not like they’re moving in a certain direction and you can get in front of them,” he recognizes. “I think they’re moving vertically, up and down, so if you turn the motor off and sit there, sometimes they’ll come back up.”

And tuna coming back up is what led to my biggest visual memory of the day. We had just put a second fish in the boat, and there were no visual indications of where the fish were now. John noticed fish on his electronics, so he got Yury to drop down a vertical jig, and that jig got smoked after only a few quick lift-and cranks.

While Yury did battle, I saw off in the distance, probably a little beyond my casting reach, a small pod of tuna crushing baits. Against previous instructions to focus on just one fish at a time, I grabbed a rod and tried my best to get that lure out to where I saw activity.

The lure was in the air, and suddenly the water between me and that small pod of fish opened up as a result of 100+ tunas in a feeding frenzy and throwing water everywhere right up to the side of the boat. The jaw-dropping sight (literally) froze me for a split second as I tried to process this National Geographic moment. My lure was maybe in the water for a second before I saw a 50 lb. class yellowfin come almost completely out of the water with my lure.

The excitement, the thrill of the hunt, and the visual memories of my day sight casting for yellowfin tunas with Capt. John Berquist, of DrumBeat Charters out of Oregon Inlet, have stayed with me much longer than the fresh tuna sashimi lasted, and I haven’t even mentioned the wheelbarrow of dolphin we caught on the way in (think about using an Albie Snax rigged weedless to throw over and pull through a grass mat to see if any mahi are home).

John offers sight-casting yellowfin trips for experienced anglers, just as he enjoys taking people on false albacore trips in the fall (casting or fly) or taking families on 6-hour bottom fishing trips for triggerfish, sea bass, and amberjacks on the numerous ARs and shipwrecks within sight of land. More information on most everything he does can be found by visiting www.drumbeatfishing.com.

If sight-casting for yellowfins has been or is now on your list, the best months for this nearly year-round fishery are May and October, but the best weather months (and remember that weather is important) are July and August. Just remember to trust John…and trust the process.