Tidelines – July 25, 2013
Last week my calendar was checkered with appointments and responsibilities related to the Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge (held this past weekend), so it took a fair amount of maneuvering to free up time enough to sneak in an offshore fishing trip. Once I made the commitment to head out Thursday morning with Capt. Mike Pederson of No Excuses Charters and Riley Rods, though, Mike made everything else about the trip easy.
The “easy” started on my way to the boat. We met at Middle Sound Marina, less than one mile from my driveway, so I was able to down the standard two cups of coffee before hopping in the truck for the morning’s three minute drive.
Mike runs a 22’ Pathfinder bayboat, not your typical offshore vessel, but this past Thursday was a bluebird day and the seas were an extremely friendly 1-2 feet every 8 seconds. We cleared the Topsail Inlet (not much tide and very little wind but still breakers across the mouth of the inlet, a statement to the status of so many of North Carolina’s shallow draft inlets), and then ran at 30 mph until we reached some bottom in about 70’ of water approximately 14 miles off the beach.
Since I last fished with Mike, he’s modified his bayboat to create more space for fishing. The leaning post is now removed with a simple pedestal stand inserted in its place, and the result is plenty of space in the back of the boat. We kept a bucket of spanish sardines between us, the pliers and a de-hooker on the pedestal seat in the middle, and began bombing the bottom with baits looking for a shallow water gag grouper.
Our short run had us anchored by 7:00 am and fishing by 7:05, and I had already released an undersized gag by 7:15. That’s when I dropped another sardine that met with an unmistakable thump and then the straight up-and-down battle of a large grouper.
The gag’s predictable behaviors were matched by my just-as-predictable reactions: thumb on spool, straining, sweating, and grunting. The fish finally came over the rails, and Mike took a quick break from fishing to snap a couple of iPhone photos of the 15 lb. gag caught within sight of the Topsail coast.
Then just a few drops later, we were fortunate enough to bring up another legal grouper, this one measuring at 25”. The 15 lb. gag had gone straight to the ice, but Mike felt confident that we could improve on the 25” fish. The smaller gag went in the livewell to be culled, where 1100 gallons an hour not only kept the gag alive but probably a little high, too.
We boated a handful more, never improving on the 25” fish, and then the sharks moved in. Our confidence in this location wavered, so we pulled anchor and headed north to fish some isolated areas of live bottom.
The second spot started by producing sea bass and grunts. Mike landed a couple more under-sized grouper before his rod took a decidedly bigger bend. A tug-of-war ensued, and it ended with a gag on the Boga-Grip measuring out at 13+ lbs. We had our two grouper, and the morning wasn’t even half over.
Mike had an afternoon charter on his mind, and I started thinking about picking up tournament t-shirts and printing boat numbers, but the seas were too pretty to call it a day just yet. Mike had the solution: let’s stop at an AR and raise some amberjacks on a topwater popper.
A quick run had us at AR-366, and even from a distance we could see the fields of cigar minnows dimpling the water’s surface around the yellow can. As soon as we started our drift, large barracudas could be seen cruising high in the water column, with an amberjack or two below the barracuda.
The topwater popper action started slow, as several of Mike’s casts came back unmolested. He had a pair of amberjacks that escorted the popper back to the boat on just about every cast, but neither of them got excited enough to make a move.
Then a smaller amberjack came up between them and crushed the popper. The fish was only on for a few seconds before it came off, but that one strike was enough to hit the “on switch.” After that small fish’s strike, just about every cast had a blow up followed by the unrelenting struggles of an amberjack trying (unsuccessfully) to bully the 7’ Riley Rods spinner.
We left the amberjacks biting, and Mike had us back at the dock by lunchtime. I took a shower and headed to A&M Screenprinting, and Mike ran home to bag up his grouper before heading to Surf City to pick up a father and his son who wanted to do some redfishing.
Fishing has been a little bit of a struggle for me in 2013, with wind and rain and scheduling conflicts, but Mike turned that around in a single day.
Those earlier fishing troubles are a distant memory now, and that’s one of the beauties of fishing. Fishing with Capt. Mike Pedersen (No Excuses Charters) and those custom Riley Rods are one of the beauties of fishing, too.
