Spanker Strikes Back
One look at a boat ramp or tackle store parking lot during the first months of the year should be all it takes to confirm the notion that southeastern NC saltwater fishing is far less popular during the winter than in the warmer seasons. The obvious downturn in tourist activity notwithstanding, even many locals put their rods and reels to rest for the cold months. However, those in the know realize that hot offshore action doesn’t end when the weather gets chilly.
One of those in the know is Capt. Brad Phillips, a grouper specialist who operates Fish Spanker Charters out of Carolina Beach (910.279.4204 or www.fishspankercharters.com). After a highly successful grouper trip early last summer, Fisherman’s Post Publisher Gary Hurley and I were anxious to get in a winter trip with Brad, who seemed confident we’d be able to find some fish in a feeding mood. This time we brought along Sales Manager Eddie Hardgrove, and the staff met Brad at Inlet Watch Marina early on a morning that only comes every four years—Leap Day.
“Were going to high-speed troll for wahoo before we bottom fish,” said our captain while loading gear onto the “Fish Spanker,” a 22’ McKee Craft center console powered by a 250 Suzuki four-stroke. I relayed this news to my companions, and we redoubled our efforts to get everything on the boat and head for the first signs of light on the eastern horizon.
As we smoothly broke Carolina Beach Inlet, an often dicey pass, Brad punched the throttle, and the GPS’s speedometer reading climbed to 40 mph. “Wait until the sun comes up, then you’ll really be able to see how calm it is. It was 1’ at 8 seconds at the Tower (over 40 miles offshore) when I left the house,” he told us. Sure enough, when the light came, an occasional gentle swell that barely lifted the boat’s bow was all that could pass for wave action.
Pulling back the throttle just over an hour later and almost 45 miles southeast of the inlet, Brad produced a pair of 50 lb. class trolling outfits and clipped Braid Marauder swimming plugs attached to heavy cable leaders to the swivels. Both plugs were made up in the black/purple color pattern that has deservedly become a standby for wahoo anglers, and one had clearly seen some action before, as sharp teeth had removed a substantial portion of its paintjob.
We dragged the Marauders around the area for 15 or so minutes, but despite my fervent hopes, the wahoo strike didn’t come. “Alright, bring them in. Let’s go bottom fishing,” Brad said, scanning his GPS unit for nearby bottom numbers while we cranked in the big plugs.
After a short run inshore, we circled a small area a few times, and the captain grabbed a pair of pliers and shackled his anchor to the chain while Eddie and I exclaimed at the impressive fish and chunky bottom marks on the sounder.
“Remember, start with small baits—half a squid or cigar minnow,” said Brad, handing us each a stout conventional rod spooled with 80 lb. mono. “Use the little baits for at least three drops, then you can go to something larger.” As Gary and I knew from our summer trip, the “Fish Spanker” bottom fishing method entails using smaller baits for the first drops to get the smaller fish on a piece of structure into a frenzy, which serves to excite the area’s larger denizens as well.
Brad believes in simple rigs for his bottom fishing, and simply ties three loops in the end of the main line, the bottom one bearing a heavy bank sinker, and the top two each holding an offset J-hook. I threaded a half squid on my top hook and a minnow’s head half on the bottom, and sent the rig into the deep. Not long after it hit the bottom, a quick tap prompted me to set the hook.
Feeling some telltale thumps, I confirmed that I’d attracted attention from a red porgy (or “pinkie”) when I cranked the fish to the surface. Though not our exact target, pinkies are tasty, and they definitely fit into the “small fish first/big fish next” formula, so I tossed the fish into a waiting bucket and sent another piece of squid down.
The next bite came as quickly as the first, but the fight was a bit different, and I soon reeled a fat vermillion snapper (beeliner) to the boat. These delicious, medium-sized snappers form dense schools, so where there’s one, there are likely to be many more. Gary quickly established the presence of such a school by winding in another nice beeliner.
Unusually, Eddie had been a bit quiet over our first few drops, but just after Gary’s snapper hit the bucket, a few labored grunts from his direction let us know he’d hooked up to something a little more substantial.
“Come on, Eddie! Get him up! What are you doing? Reel!” came the cacophony of trash talk from Gary and me, despite the obvious fact that the fish was a formidable one and wouldn’t be coming to the boat easily. While heckling Eddie, we somehow found time to re-bait and sent our rigs back to the bottom, hooking up with more beeliners while our coworker continued his battle.
After a few moments, instead of the vertical fight that usually characterizes a grouper, Eddie’s adversary made a hard run away from the boat, leading us to the conclusion that he’d hooked up with a large shark. Sure enough, after a battle that lasted several more minutes and took him around the boat, Eddie got the shark boatside, and Brad leaned over the gunnel and cut the leader near its mouth. “That one was probably 6-7’ with his tail,” he said while retying Eddie’s rig.
Gary and I had continued to catch beeliners while Eddie fought the shark, and the number of the bright red fish in the bucket and on deck soon approached double digits, with many in the 1.5-2+ lb. range. Armed with a fresh rig, Eddie soon joined in the beeliner bonanza, and added several more of the colorful snappers and a few pinkies to the catch. After another quarter hour of loading up on beeliners, Brad decided to make a short move in the hopes of putting us on top of some groupers.
Soon after anchoring up atop his next spot, a small crack in the bottom with some live growth surrounding it, we sent down more baits, landing a few pinkies and a white grunt before Eddie was again the first to hook up with something massive. Gary and I continued the pattern of landing smaller fish while giving Eddie a hard time throughout his battle, and again, the fish made a horizontal run that gave it away as a shark. However, this one was pulling even harder than his first, at least until it decided to casually swim up to and past the boat.
“Tiger Shark, Look!” Brad exclaimed as the shark cruised past the starboard side of the boat. Sure enough, the vividly striped, blunt nosed animal swam within 10’ of the boat in a spectacle of sinister beauty before easily stripping another 50 yards of line off Eddie’s reel and heading back to the depths. Eddie gained line for a few minutes after the run, but the creature seemed to have no intentions of returning to the boat.
“I’ll cut him off, but see if you can get some more of my line back first,” Brad said, grinning as sweat beaded up on Eddie’s temples. After tormenting him for a few more moments, Brad cut the line with the shark wallowing around 30’ beneath the boat.
The back-to-back shark battles earned Eddie the name “Shark King” and convinced him to strip off a layer of his cold weather gear to cool down. While the sharks were fascinating, we were after grouper, and the Shark King wasn’t exactly elated about his new nickname.
Fortunately for Eddie, a few minutes later, he again hooked up with a big fish, and this one was displaying the hard-pulling, bottom-digging tendencies that generally signify a grouper. Following another hearty tussle that extracted a few more beads of sweat from Eddie’s brow, the day’s first grouper, a healthy red, came over the gunnels.
“What did he eat?” I asked, imagining Eddie had baited up with something larger like a chunk of grunt or one of the other smaller bottom fish we’d saved for bait. He surprised me by revealing that the fish had taken half a squid, proving Brad’s earlier statement that “elephants like to eat peanuts” (or in this case, grouper and beeliner baits).
Now Gary and I had little to talk trash about, and both set about trying to bring a grouper of our own to the boat and shed a bit of sweat ourselves. Unfortunately, the bite slowed in a few minutes, and Brad decided to make another quick move, looking for active fish.
Our next spot was a higher relief ledge in around 70 degree water, ideal king mackerel conditions. Brad decided to set out the light-line, a live-bait style setup with two treble hooks on a weightless wire leader, while we bottom fished. Pinning a dead cigar minnow to the trebles, he tossed it out behind the boat and set the rod in a T-top holder.
Within five minutes, the light-line rig’s clicker began singing, and I pulled the rod from the top. Although it made a quick initial run, the fish soon slowed down. “I think it’s a shark,” I said to Brad. “Sharks don’t usually go that fast,” he responded. I was still skeptical, but after a few more runs, a king’s silver flanks flashed in the clear water, and I had to change my tune. “Nope, it’s a king,” I acknowledged, leading it to Brad’s waiting gaff.
After boxing the king, Brad reset the light-line as we went back to bottom fishing, catching more grunts, pinkies, beeliners, and some small sea bass. It didn’t take long for the light-line reel to begin singing again, and Eddie fought his own king to the boat. After even less time than the second bite took, Gary’s number was called as the light-line rod bent over again, and he soon landed a matching mackerel.
After re-anchoring to fish the other side of the structure, which Brad described as a sort of “crown” on the bottom, Eddie hooked yet another promising fish on his bottom rod. However, the fight died out on the way to the surface, and it was easy to see why. “Something came along and gutted him,” Brad said, referring to the red grouper hooked onto Eddie’s bottom rig. Indeed, a predator (probably a shark, judging from the jagged bite) had perfectly removed the belly section from Eddie’s fish, leaving the head and gills, and, mercifully, most of the fillets intact.
The four of us made a number of other drops without any more grouper action, and Brad again made the call to move, and we headed to some live bottom numbers he had nearby. The fast bite continued once our baits hit the bottom, and we again landed pinkies, beeliners, sea bass, and grunts.
After dropping to the bottom at least a dozen times, I felt a solid thump, and set the hook into something more substantial. As the fish dug for the bottom, I resisted, keeping the rod tip high and reeling when possible. When the fight eased a third of the way to the surface, I cautiously began hoping for a grouper, and my hopes were soon realized as another red grouper materialized in the depths, growing larger with each turn of the reel handle. I soon was able to swing the fish over the gunnel, elated to have finally put a grouper in the boat.
We stopped at a number of other spots while working our way back towards the beach as the afternoon wore on, but an infestation of pesky spiny dog sharks had taken over all the numbers we stopped at in less than 90’ of water. These aggressive nuisances beat nearly everything else to our baits, and after catching our fill of them, we made the call to beat the sinking sun back to land.
Although the grouper bite wasn’t spectacular the day we went, Brad worked hard to put us on fish, moving constantly when the bite slowed. And he succeeded, as the cooler full of beeliners, pinkies, red grouper, and kings attested back at the dock. Additionally, we caught at least 8 more species of fish over the day, and it was a rare moment when the boat wasn’t in motion and one of us wasn’t hooked up to a fish.
As my first offshore trip of 2008, the only bittersweet moment was back at the dock, when I was forced to admit I got outfished by the Shark King.
If you’d like to book a trip with Capt. Brad Phillips of Fish Spanker Charters out of Carolina beach, give him a call at (910) 279-4204, or you can visit him on the web at www.fishspankercharters.com.
