windknotnc
Well-known member
Made the drive from Tarboro yesterday morning and after a stop in Snow Hill to pick up a friend, we got to Beaufort about 7am. Got the boat fueled and launched with some heavy fog. Idled our way to the inlet with 3 sets of eyes looking for markers and boats. Finally cleared the inlet and made about 10kts heading offshore. Eventually the fog lifted a little and we were able to run about 18kts into a sloppy head sea. Got to some numbers in about 100' of water with screaming current (got to love a full moon). 12oz of lead on the bottom rig was still bouncing backwards. First drop produced a hubcap trigger and it was on from there. We were pulling up triggers and beeliners on almost every drop. Tried for a grouper, but the current made it nearly impossible. After a while, the bite slowed and we pulled anchor and moved a few hundred yards. Marked loads of bait on the bottom, which we realized were 4" tomtates getting demolished by seabass. Caught a few nice seabass that were upchucking those tomtates. I stuck one on a hook and it was immediately hammered. Started stripping line like crazy but I was hesitant to tighten the drag with the light leader. After a few tenuous minutes a red snapper popped to the surface. This trend continued with every other tomtate we sent down. We caught a few on cigar minnows, but they really seemed to prefer the tomtates. All of them were released and swam back down. The current had slowed and we were able to get by with 8oz of lead. My son eventually sent another grouper bait down and it got smoked. He got the fish off the bottom a couple times, but it kept pulling drag. He finally got it up and it started to float. 31" gag met the gaff and the ice. Around 3pm, we decided to call it a day and make the run back in. Fortunately the wind had layed down and we had a following sea which enabled us to run about 30kts. Two weeks ago we had a flat tire, this week the bushing on the steering wheel appeared to have cracked during the run back in. Had to gingerly steer from the center of the wheel for not knowing whether it would break. All in all, it was a great day offshore and our friend got is first American Red Snapper. I think he's hooked.
