Few things are as much fun as fighting a big cobia. We started out trolling today and put a wahoo and some gaffer dolphin on ice and then went to jigging. Headed to a spot where the cobia seem to stack up pretty good and stacked they were. We decked 8 cobia in an hour , most all of them came on GUIDES SECRET BUCKTAILS. Those bucktails have a rattle inside and the cobia couldn't resist. Busted off about 4 cobia when the hooks broke on the spro bucktails we were using after I ran out of the good Guide Secret ones. Also piled up some big aj's. As a bonus a nice fat cobia had a VA Saltwater reward tag in her. The cobia should keep piling up until they move in along the beach in mid May, so if you want some good fun and good eats come on down.

Fun, Fun, and more Fun. If you want a serious workout, it is waiting for you all up and down the break. I had a group of anglers from 4 different states jump on board for 2 days of jigging. Day one brought stiff winds in the morning and afternoon so we abandoned our plan of running down the beach in a quest for African pompano and headed due south out of Beaufort Inlet to the break. When we got there it was instant aj each and every drop. A few falsies mixed in, and almacos. It was brutal fishing, and in search of a reason to stop fishing for a bit we decided to head deep for a snowy. Got there, got the snowy, some more aj's, and some lessers and then headed back in for some more jigging. It was instant bendage again. Decided to fill the brine tank with some hubcap sized triggers and broke out the anchor. The first two sets were slow fishing, but the third time was a charm and soon enough the giant triggers were jumping aboard. Headed in with a pile of meat and readied the boat for day two.

Day two greeted us with another passenger, Kai, who wasn't with us on day one. It also greeted the crew of six with calm seas and light winds so we headed down the beach to go Pompano and cobia shopping. I was disappointed with the water temp only showing upper sixties all the way to about 40 fathoms. Tried a few spots for the pomps and it was all amberjack, all the time. Hit a handful of false albies and almacos as well. A couple of the guys dragged up some nice gag grouper and Mike caught 2 nice red grouper. Venting and releasing the gags was a piece of cake, the reds required a lot of care and even a weight assisted descent to get them back to the bottom. Some of the AJ's in 275 ft. were large and in charge and wore down the crew pretty quickly. Looked for the blackfin for a change of pace and found none. We broke out the anchor again in 225 ft. for some more triggers and got eaten alive by the beeliners and added some more nice triggers to the tally. We had a beautiful Mako in the 200 lb. class chase a hooked Beeliner right to the transom so we scrambled and rigged a jigging rod up with a shark rig and threw a big ole chunk of false albie on it and tried to bring the mako back to us. No love form the mako , but, we did get all the love we wanted from a 10 ft. hammerhead. Milton and Mike fought the beast with a jigging rod and went all the way around the anchored boat a couple times before I was able to leader the beast and we cut the cable to send the majestic creature free and healthy. Now we were all pretty spent so we cleaned things up and pointed the bow for the beach for a relaxing 35 knot cruise home.

Thanks to everybody who joined me and I look forward to fishing with you all again. The wahoo were around and a few of them got some jigs, but, the conditions didn't look all that great for trolling. I believe the water will get right soon and the troll bite will fire off. I don't have pictures for you due to a dead camera, but, some of the guys were snapping some shots so I will see if I can get my hands on a few.

As always the new Spinal Rods performed flawlessly. Thanks Travis and Marc for building a great stick !!

All I can say is what a day. The weather was fantastic. It blew a little but the seas never really built. I had a crew of 5 from Spinal Rods and we pointed the bow for the break after a leisurely 6 am. leave time. First stop was just inshore of the rock and the albacore and aj's were there, but they weren't very big. It was a good warm-up for what was to come.

We pushed off farther looking for some bigger fish and came across some marks that looked right. I called blackfin from what I saw on the sounder, but it turned out to be some of the biggest Atlantic Bonita I have ever seen. We caught 4 of them , got bit off a couple times and had some taken by larger fish. Also added a king to the tally.

Moved a bit deeper again and the sonar looked painful. I saw some huge marks mixed in among the normal stuff, and we went to work on large aj's, false albacore, almacos, and some real freight trains. We had a number of false albacore and blue runners that were grabbed by something that I am convinced were giant bluefin. I had one blue runner hooked up when it got smoked and I quickly lost a hundred yards of line before the beast let go. I got the blue runner back to the boat and it was unmarked except for a couple tuna scrapes. That scenerio repeated itself a couple times and the albies that got grabbed all had telltale tuna scrapes on them. We never were able to trade up and get a solid hook in what was eating the albies, but it was exciting for sure.

Made another move and found the mother lode of full grown reef donkeys. It was stupid fishing, and soon enough the crew needed some time off so we went looking for a snowy. Pushed off to 500 ft. and soon enough we had a nice snowy, a few rosie wreckfish, and some lesser aj's and almacos. Mission accomplished.

Ran back in towards the break and went back to work on the aj's and albies again. It was instant hookups each and every drop. We never had any monsters, and only a few broke the 60 lb. mark. But, what we lacked in quality, we made up for in quantity. The sharks started getting pretty thick so we decided to send out a rigged albacore and show a few of them who was boss as well. We fished mostly 200 and 300 gram spinal rods equipped with Stellas, Accurates, Talicas, and Jigging Master reels. The rods worked great and survived unholy abuse, and ridiculous drag settings.

We all enjoyed the beautiful day and called it a bit early due to total body soreness from the non-stop ride on the pain train. Headed back in at 35 kts. to a nice hot bowel of chili, a few beers and a handful of advil. I can't wait to get back out and do it all again.

Here is a quick video of the fight, actually it is just the dicey parts right at the end game. Things went pretty smooth through most of the fight even though she was pulling hard and wanted to stay deep. Just like any fishing, the most touch and go part is at the end and we did have a dart pull out of the gill plate which is beyond rare, but the next one stayed put. We planned on swimming her most of the way back figuring she was a bit large to boat but eventually she bled out due to the two dart shots through the gill plate and we gave it a good effort to get her aboard. At one point we had the whole fish out of the water but just couldn't get her thick round body over the gunnel. We drug her as fast as we could into the cold water along the beach and then to the dock. When we cleaned her at the dock the core was actually pretty cool so that made me feel better about not being able to get her aboard.

A big Thanks to Fred Hamilton for helping with the whole process. He was invaluable even though he is a relative newby when it comes to the bluefin game. THANKS AGAIN FRED !!

Another big Thank You to Andrew on the Sea Striker for letting out a location where fish were seen. This is a tough game and a lot of very good fisherman are spending a pile of money to chase these unicorns. It is refreshing when another Captain helps others with the quest. Good Karma for the Sea Striker crew for sure, you guys will be next.

We headed out looking for some fun and groceries. Jigging and bottom fishing gear only, and the trolling gear stayed in the garage. Cruised a nice 25 kts. on the way out with a sizable following sea and made it to our first stop, a wreck in about 160 ft. of water and sent the jigs down. A few fish hooked before everybody got their rods ready, however the cudas knocked them in half at the boat. I figured we wouldn't be able to get anything past the 5 ft. cudas hanging under the boat so we pushed off to some live bottom areas on the break.

We worked our way up the break in roughly 70 degree water and had steady action with AJ's, almacos, albies, and assorted other jacks. I marked the blackfin on many occasions but the aj's were quicker to the jigs, and soon had the crew wanting to pull on something else.

Decided to break the anchor out and go after some jumbo deepwater triggers. I figured it was gonna be a bloodbath, however we only managed a few for the brine tank. The ones we got were big, but it wasn't what I was wanting. Put the anchor away and went on the drift to see if we could pick up the scattered triggers and found a good bite of creole fish, and very big sand tiles and short drifted a very small area and managed to put a good number of tasty beautiful creoles in the tank.

Sometimes the best laid plans don't quite work out. However, we may have fell a bit short in the jumbo trigger department, but we made up for it in the ball busting laugh all day department and enjoyed a nice quick ride back in nice seas. A big piles of creoles, a fish not many people have had the pleasure of eating, was just a bit of icing on the cake.

Thanks to the crew, I enjoyed the day thoroughly.

The fishing will run strong through the winter. Soon enough we will be rocking some killer jigging and popping rods from Spinal and some awesome terminal tackle from Guides Secret. Come on down, bend a rod, and see if you can handle the amberjack pain train !!