Tidelines – September 12, 2013
Gary Hurley and Capt. Jamie Rushing, of Seagate Charters, with a couple of the spanish mackerel they caught while fishing offshore of the sea buoy out of Wrightsville Beach. Jamie was guiding the trip on Gary’s bay boat.
Since my boys are way bigger fans of “catching” than fishing, I brought Capt. Jamie Rushing, of Seagate Charters out of the Wrightsville Beach area, onto my boat to make sure I was prepared for success if I decided to enter the Hurley family into the upcoming NewBridge Bank Spanish Mackerel Open, presented by Fisherman’s Post.
Jamie runs inshore and nearshore charters on his own 21’ bay boat, but he also gets paid to guide people on how to fish their own boat. This was the service I wanted. I wanted Jamie to review my spanish mackerel fishing technique, and then critique and offer suggestions on how to improve the technique specific to my boat. Again, if my plan was to put two of my boys—Owen (age 8) and James (age 6)—on board in a tournament, I wanted some insurance that our morning fishing would go smoothly, allowing us more time to enjoy juice boxes and donuts.
I’m of the school of thought that preparation leads to success, so before just heading out in the early morning hours to target spanish, I wanted Jamie to look over my gear and tackle. We met on a Wednesday afternoon at Intracoastal Angler, and Jamie gave my rods & reels and tackle box a quick review and offered a few suggestions.
My two live bait king rods, spooled with 30 lb. mono, were identified as two good planer rods for trolling for spanish. I then had a couple of 6’ medium heavy spinning combos that we would use (if needed) for a long center line pulling a bird or spanish daisy chain. Finally, we wanted to have a couple of 7’ medium-light spinners for casting 1 oz. diamond jigs and Sea Striker Jigfish to any fish we spotted feeding on the surface.
Jamie’s approach to fishing for spanish mackerel, and one of the joys of spanish mackerel fishing in general, is to keep it simple. He had me buy a couple more 00 Clarkspoons (Jamie explains, you can’t be too small with spoons but you can be too big), and color didn’t really matter. He liked having both gold and silver spoons, but cared little for the spoons with metallic flash. Add a couple of #1 planers, a few ball bearing snap swivels, and some 25 lb. mono for leader, and our trolling rigs were complete.
On the casting rods, he wanted 25 lb. fluoro leader, and then again with the smaller size casting jigs. The center line was more my idea—since Blue Water Candy is a big sponsor of the Spanish Mackerel Open, I wanted to pull a spanish daisy (three 3” squid tandem rigged on 30# wire with gold hooks) that Jody Gay, the owner, had put in my hand months ago.
Thursday morning on the water started as a standard spanish mackerel adventure. As soon as Jamie and I left the Masonboro jetties we started looking for signs of fish. There were birds working out towards the southeast in about 40’ of water. And sure enough, the birds led us to large bait balls of glass minnows moving through the area.
Several trolls through the dimpling bait pods produced zero hookups, though, so we then started paying more attention to the radio and watching what other boats were doing. The intel we collected was that spanish were working just offshore of the sea buoy, and sure enough we started picking up fish as we headed north.
Most of the fish were small, at or near the 12” minimum, but every so often we would put a near 2 lb. fish in the cooler. However, it was the repetition of smaller spanish hookups that allowed Jamie and I to fine tune a system specific for my boat. For example, my rear rod holders aren’t in the gunnels but in the very back of the boat, so we quickly decided that it would be best for my kids to reel in the fish kneeling on the livewell with the rod staying in the rod holder. They could reel the planer right up to the rod tip (Jamie’s suggestion, as it’s safer—especially with kids—than leaving extra line that allows the planer to swing around unpredictably), and then I would grab the rod and give them the leader to handline the fish to the boat.
While Jamie and I continued to fine tune the system, he offered any number of other little suggestions and tips, ranging from implementing a slow and steady retrieve (to keep the planer from resetting or to keep the fish from jumping out of the water and throwing the hook), to using a dehooker (smart to use on both the single hook Clarkspoons and the trebles of casting jigs), to a quick way to reset the planer after you get a bite but the fish comes off (instead of reeling the planer back to the boat, you just grab the line above the reel, pull back about 3 feet, and let go, and that momentary lapse of pressure allows the planer to reset).
We made a few more laps around the sea buoy, always trying to turn to the side of the boat with the short planer, before large schools of spanish chasing bait exploded on the surface all around us. The planers and center line were reeled in, and then we started tossing casting jigs to the surface activity. Hookups were instantaneous, but again we brought in several small spanish before culling out a larger fish or two.
Our mission was accomplished. We caught spanish on Clarkspoons, a bird rig with a spanish daisy chain, and casting jigs, and with each fish brought to the boat Jamie had yet another bit of spanish wisdom to share with me.
Short of buying donuts and juice boxes, I’m now ready to enter the Hurley boys in the NewBridge Bank Spanish Mackerel Open. The only problem now is the obvious one: is it proper to enter your own tournament?
