Vaca Report

[Steve in Mass]

Well, it's back to work after two weeks on Hatteras Island (June 24 thru July 8). Fishing for me was just so-so, as the wind and weed would not cooperate. Seems whenever we got favorable winds to clear the water, the weed would blow in, making spanish fishing nearly impossible. Besides that, the speckled where almost non existent. Put in 20-25 hours on the sound with only one small speckeled and a lot of bitten off tails to show for it. Almost everyday at 11 am, a school of blues would go by and bite off my tails within a fraction of a millimeter of the hook. The few I did hook up with decided to take another gulp and went thru the 6 lb test like butter. A little frustrated, I had a plan, but never got a chance to use it, because by the time I came up with it, the blues disappeared.

The first morning on the beach, I had bunker out on the heaver for cobia. Saw some spanish go by, so I spiked the heaver on free spool and started throwing metal at the spanish. No takers, and after about 15 minutes I quit that. Was just about to exchange rods in the spike when the heaver went down, along with the spike, and started heading east real fast. Just barely grabbed the butt of the rod before it was part of the Atlantic. Now I have two rods in my hands and a reel full of sand with line peeling off like crazy. Tightened down the drag a notch and started to reel, and.....gone. 30 lb florocarbon leader broken (or bitten?) off at the hook and at the sinker. Will never know...cobia....ray...shark (probably). Needless to say, after tearing down the reel to clean it, the sand spike went into the sand about two feet every other time out!

While I was down, heard of a 14 lb cobia taken on Avon beach just south of where I was in North Avon, and a 59 lber taken from the Point.

I suppose the highlight of the trip was the make up charter I got on. First time I ever did that, and it was fun. Between six guys, we got about 150 lbs of dolphin and spanish, including one citation bull dolphin and another that was just short of citation. Also had a sailfish on, but it was the turn of the guy touting himself as "Joe-Pro" the whole trip in the chair. He started to pump the rod before taking up the slack, and the fish was gone within half a minute. Only got one jump out of him. Nice going, Mr. Expert. The flying fish were pretty cool to watch, and had a few porpoise following the boat for awhile.

Crabbing was better than last year, got a few dozen the times I went out for them. Good food, the New Askin Creek Grill at the ferry landing in Hatteras was pretty nice, and the Breakwater was good as usual. Lots of swimming, a few fish (couple of blues, the one speckled, and a ton of croaker, they became a pain). Is it next June yet?

[John M]

Steve good to see ya back. I shoulda come down that last weekend in June they did well on cobia, but I guess thats cause i wasnt there oh well.........glad ya had a good time

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John M
johnm@stripersonline.com