Tidelines – May 12, 2016
The Hurley family of five—complete with all of the chaos that goes along with having three boys ages 4, 9, and 10—went out to catch some bonito this past Saturday, and I’m surprised by the outcome. Somehow we ended up serving fresh sashimi the next day for Mother’s Day dinner.
Capt. Chad Davis, of Lucky Dawg Guide Service out of the Wilmington/Topsail area, wasn’t surprised at the outcome, as he’s been catching bonito in the area of Diver’s Rock for years now. And to be clear, I wasn’t surprised at Chad’s ability to put us on fish, even when the bonito bite in general had slowed down over the past week and catches of blues, spanish, and false albacore had become more predominant.
James Hurley with a 9.2 lb. bonito caught on a Yo-Zuri Deep Diver just inside of Diver’s Rock. He was fishing with Capt. Chad Davis (left) of Lucky Dawg Guide Service.
I was simply surprised that the Hurley family of five actually got out of bed at 5:00 am and made it to the boat ramp on time.
The boys road tripped with Eggo waffles and “green juice,” and then Chad quickly had us on plane leaving the Fulcher’s Landing boat ramp headed for the ever-changing New River Inlet.
Earlier in the week he had found success inside of the fleet, and on our day, too, he started seeing some cleaner before getting the full five miles off the beach. So our boat ride into the Atlantic was a short one before deploying a couple of small to medium sized Yo-Zuri Deep Divers. Chad put one Yo-Zuri back about 50 yards and the other 75.
The boys didn’t even have time to ask for Gatorade or something to eat before the short rod started dancing, advertising that we had a fish but not a drag-pulling one. Owen, the oldest, got to the rod first, bringing in one of our only bluefish of the morning.
Owen Hurley (older brother) with the second bonito of the morning. The bonito hit a clown-colored Yo-Zuri Deep Diver in about 40 of water, and was eaten for Mothers Day dinner.
James (middle) and Ethan (youngest) watched Owen crank the blue in, and as the released bluefish hit the water, the three boys in unison suddenly remembered that they hadn’t eaten in almost an hour and asked for snacks.
Chad started to get the boat back to the 5-6 mph trolling speed as Leslie dug around for Goldfish crackers, but apparently a bonito had been stalking the long line as it lay dormant in the water while we landed the bluefish. Before we even hit the 5 mph mark, the second rod bent down, and this time the heavier bend in the rod announced the promise of our target species.
Owen may have done what older brothers do, being the first one on the rod that day, but sometimes being first (or oldest?) isn’t the best. James, perpetually the second in rotation and always after his older brother, was hooked to a much harder fighting fish.
Chad clearly enjoys fishing with kids on his boat, as he coached James and answered his questions but let James do everything for himself (using level winders on the boat helped, too). When the fish got close to the boat, Chad had James move the rod to a rod holder up the gunnel a little further away from the engine, and soon the bonito spiraled close enough for the waiting net.
Leslie and I had planned to make a big deal and celebrate every fish the boys caught that morning, but it was easy and natural to celebrate this fish. On the scales, James’ fish would weigh 9.2 lbs. (citation is 8 lbs.), but on the boat we didn’t need a scale to tell us that we had just landed our Mother’s Day dinner.
Trolling through the morning produced more spanish than anything else, with most of the spanish well above the 12” minimum, but luckily Owen reeled in a second bonito, otherwise we may have had sibling rivalry and envy.
Our youngest? Ethan wasn’t worried about either catching or not catching a bonito—he was content cheering on his brothers from the comfort of Leslie’s lap.
Capt. Chad Davis runs a 19’ Southern Skimmer and will be bouncing back and forth between inshore and nearshore fishing well into the summer. He mostly targets reds and flounder inside, and off the beach he likes to chase spanish, flounder, and cobia (he also follows the shrimp boats for shark fishing trips).
Corral your kids (or leave them at home) and give Chad a call at (910) 612-7460, or visit him online at www.luckydawgguideservice.com.
