Added on Thursday, April 28, 2011  Fish Post

The Stripes Of Spring

Yellow butterflies have been flitting about for weeks, the dogwood in my front yard has blossomed and then wilted, and azaleas are bursting with color throughout southeast NC, but I’m an angler and these terrestrial cues mean little to me. In my mind, spring hasn’t truly arrived until I hear that first reel-sizzling run of an Atlantic bonito.

Like many in our area, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the speedy littoral tunas since approximately mid-February, and as happens every year, the fish actually make their first showing sometime in the second week of April. After a week of hearing reports that the striped pelagics had arrived off New River Inlet, last Saturday I finally hopped on a boat with East Coast Sports’ Chris Medlin, Capt. Phil Leonard of Topsail Fishing Charters, and, of course, Fisherman’s Post Publisher Gary Hurley.

“Chris, we’ve only been trying to fish together for eight years. I can’t believe it’s finally happening,” Gary exclaimed as we motored towards New River from the North Topsail boat ramp in Phil’s 21’ Clearwater skiff.

Chris was similarly enthusiastic, as he hadn’t had a chance to chase bonito yet this spring, either, and morale about the skiff was decidedly high as Phil negotiated the boat through the confused waves in New River Inlet.

“Birds,” Chris and Phil said at once, and I looked north along the coast to see several pelicans dive-bombing some hapless bait just offshore. We stopped and briefly fired diamond jigs towards the activity, but the water was still inlet-brown and Phil quickly made the call to move offshore.

“Let’s head out towards Diver’s,” he said as we cranked in our diamond jigs. “That’s where we’ve been getting into them the last couple days.”

Diver’s Rock, a massive live bottom complex just a few miles off New River, has become Ground Zero to the area’s bonito fishery in the last few years.

“I’ve been fishing for these things since I was twelve,” Chris explained a bit later. “We used to catch them at the Liberty Ship off Wrightsville and not really get them up here. The last 4-5 years, they’ve shown up up here way better than down there.”

A quartet of boats became visible through a light morning fog as we crept offshore, close together and most likely on some fish.

“See that,” Phil said to me, gesturing to a linear cluster of marks on his chartplotter. “That’s the ledge where we’ve been hooking them the last few days, and they’re just about on it.”

Some scattered bird activity was visible between our position and the boats, and Chris and Phil quickly decided we might be able to run across some fish short of the crowd.

“Let’s troll on over there,” Chris said as Phil agreed, nodding to a pair of rods bearing small Yo-Zuri Deep Divers in the Clearwater’s rear holders.

“Let those out,” Phil said as he turned to Gary and I. “Those small ones don’t run nearly as well as the larger ones, so if one’s tracking to the wrong side, switch them out.”

It quickly became apparent that Phil was correct, and we swapped the port and starboard rods.

As we kept an eye on the rod tips bouncing gently with the wobble of the plugs, Chris produced some custom Blue Water Candy diamond jigs he’d had made up especially for the day.

“That’s an East Coast exclusive,” he explained, passing a 1 oz. diamond jig with alternating chartreuse and pink flash tape on its four sides, “the electric chicken diamond jig.”

“There he is,” I heard Chris next exclaim, and looked back to see the rod nearest me bent and bucking as something tore line from the reel.

“I think we’ve got the right kind,” I said as the fish continued to rip line from the reel at a pace far quicker than a bluefish could sustain. Ahh, Springtime!

“Isn’t it a kick to fight one on that bass tackle?” Phil queried as I was able to put the first bit of line back on the 5000 Ambassadeur’s spool. “Way better than fighting them on live bait gear like a lot of guys troll with.”

I cranked the little reel’s handle furiously to try and match the speed the fish was now applying back towards the boat, and had to absolutely agree.

As abruptly as it had turned to us, the fish now headed away again, trying unsuccessfully to toss the hook with a violent head shake.

The second run didn’t last nearly the length of the first, and the fish was clearly tiring a bit, allowing me to again gain some line on the small baitcaster.

Making a series of increasingly shorter runs, the fish soon went deep, beginning the circular battle that tiring tuna and mackerel are famous for.

I was able to gain a little line with each lap, and soon the striped silver flanks and greenish back of a healthy Atlantic bonito were visible each time it swam out from under the boat.

A few more circles had the fish boiling the surface.

“I got it, Phil,” Chris exclaimed. Eyes on the fish and on the bonito’s next turn, the tackle shop owner dropped to his knees, reached over the gunwale, and popped back to his feet, water streaming off the unhappy bonito hanging from his hand.

“Whoa, the ninja tail grab!” I said with a grin.

Unlike their oft-confused relatives little tunny, Atlantic bonito are excellent on the table, rivaling yellowfin tuna, and the fish was soon laid to rest in Phil’s cooler, destined for a short stint on a hot grill later that evening.

After landing the first fish, we saw some surface activity and diving birds not far off, and Phil and Chris made the call to motor over and cast jigs into the fray. Casting and jigging for the fish allows anglers to step down the tackle another degree, and we had an assortment of rods that would’ve been appropriate for speckled trout rigged up with the custom diamond jigs.

It turns out we weren’t the only anglers to see the chaos, and several other boats headed towards the action.

“I’m going to come in from upwind so we can stay a little further off and still cast to them,” Phil explained as we glided in, first to reach the spot. “Let me know when you can hit ‘em.”

“Now!” Chris and I said practically at once.

We fired casts to the action, allowed the jigs to sink a bit, and were both immediately rewarded with bent rods. Gary, who’d lost his jig, was scrambling to get another rod.

Chris’s fish took off with signature bonito speed, widening his grin. Mine, however, was coming in a little too easily, and Phil immediately knew why.

“Bluefish?” he asked rhetorically.

It was, and I hurriedly cranked the two-pounder in, hoping to fire off another cast before the bonito were out of range. As I was unhooking my fish, I heard a yelp of glee and another squealing drag as Gary apparently had found one of the right kind.

Doubleheader! I tried to make it a triple, but my next cast found another blue as Gary and Chris followed their fish around the boat.

“That’s nice, Max, getting the blues out of the way so everybody else can hook up,” Phil needled, firing a cast of his own before adding a little helpful advice. “You’re probably reeling a little too slow. If you let it sink and just burn it back to you, it’s usually too fast for the blues, but not the bonito.”

By the time I’d unhooked blue number two, the fish were out of reach and I grabbed the camera, trying (and failing) to document Phil’s own bonito ninja grab after Chris worked his fish to the boat.

The publisher’s fish still had a little energy left, zipping off line in erratic directions before finally settling into a spiral beneath the skiff. Chris was quick to tail-grab Gary’s fish when it was within range, and the two were soon posing for a photo with the results of their double hook-up.

“Those teeth get tangled up something terrible in a landing net,” Phil explained as we motored upwind of another group of birds working the surface. “It’s just better to grab them if you can.”

Chris, Gary, and I all fired casts towards the activity as Phil shut the motor off and grabbed another rod.

“If you cut the motor off, those fish will come a lot closer to the boat,” he explained while his jig sailed through the air.

Chris again hooked up with a bonito nearly instantly, and he issued a light whoop as he was again rewarded with a doubled rod.

I got bit quickly too, but wasn’t at first sure what I had.

“Dang Max! Another blue?” Phil asked.

“I don’t think so. He’s kinda acting erratic and burning back towards us,” I replied.

Just beneath the boat, the fish’s identity crisis must have reached some closure, as it turned and tore away from the boat, melting line off the 2500-size spinner’s spool.

My next glance over garnered that Gary was hooked up and holding a bucking rod as well.

“If that’s a bluefish,” Phil said, “he’s definitely holding his ground.”

The following few seconds bore out that it was indeed a stubborn bluefish, and Phil repeated his advice about speeding up the retrieve to a new pupil.

Chris and I continued playing our fish, eventually bringing them to Phil’s waiting hands and adding to our haul in the cooler.

The bird and surface action had slowed down a bit as we re-assessed the area after the triple-hookup chaos had died down, and Phil decided it was time for a slight change in tactics.

“We’ve been getting them while jigging over that ledge when they’re not up top,” he explained, performing a final scan for birds. “Let’s go over there and give it a shot.”

“Drop them down there,” Phil said as the screen showed a vibrant display of life just off the bottom, “and just rip them back up to the boat. You get a lot more cut-offs from the bluefish if you really jig them.”

The vertical approach produced hookups for all three of us, and after adding another bonito to the cooler, Chris turned to Gary and me.

“How many do you guys want to keep?” he asked, peering into the cooler. “We’ve got seven or eight.”

Gary and I agreed that two apiece would suit our needs perfectly, so we went into catch and release mode, picking another few bonito and a bluefish off the ledge. I invited Gary to try his own tail-grab on one of my final fish, hoping for an opportunity to poke a little fun, but the newspaperman nailed it, hauling the surprised fish into the boat at the absolute first opportunity for a quick dehooking and release.

With plenty of fish on the boat and grins that wouldn’t leave our faces, we made the call to troll for the inlet so the family men aboard could score some bonus points by, for once, getting home early from a fishing trip.

Shortly into our travels, one of the trolling rods doubled over again, and Gary got to fight one final fish to the boat before we decided to head for home.

As the soy-ginger bonito loins sizzled on the grill that evening and a warm breeze bent leafy limbs, I was finally able to acknowledge what nature’s been trying to tell me for six weeks. Spring has arrived!

Capt. Phil Leonard will transition from bonito into pursuing spanish mackerel with similar tactics as spring wears into summer, and he also chases kings, amberjacks, sharks, and more in the ocean as the season wears on. In addition, Phil specializes in putting clients on inshore targets like red and black drum, speckled trout, and flounder.

For more information or to schedule a trip with Phil, check out www.topsailcharterfishing.com or call (910) 358-4912.