North Carolina with Dad! 20th April 2010

Sorry for being stagnant the past few weeks.
Work was piling and dad was in town!
Did what i always wanted to do, bring him Jigging in North Carolina.
D day - 20th April...
Dad aka Joe, Sami, Ilya, Evan and myself drove 10hours *yes...10 hours again* to AJ mecca North Carolina.
Captain Mike of Liveline Charters greeted us at 0545am and we head out straight to the AJ grounds.
Weather was great, seas were calm and fishes were hungry!
We started fishing from 0730 and was greeted by the usual AJs no biggies this time but we had a blast!
Amberjacks, African Pompanos, Groupers, Almacos, Black Fin Tunas and Sharks were everywhere!
Many AJs were lost due to sharks attacks, Ilya caught the 2 Pompanos and Grouper of the trip.
Evan landed the bigest Aj of the trip estimated at 70lb.
Dad, Sami and myself had our fair share of AJs in the 20s to 40s.
The highlight was actually the Black fins! They were chasing after flying fish and were leaping 6ft out of the water. Topwater lures started whizzing in all direction and Black fins were landed one after another.
It was pretty late when we actually headed back to the dock.
Thank you Captain Mike for the extended stay in the water,  thank you for being so accomodating, my dad can't wait to fish with you again!
Now for the pics.
Cheers and Tightlines,
Paul.

Oregon Inlet 4-7-2010

Hi peeps,

here is the report from yesterday's crazy fishing
6 of us met up at Oregon inlet at 5am.
Chris aka Entourage.
Chris aka CJB08.
Ilya aka Surfmonster.
Arkady
Sami & myself
The flags were flapping hard over at the marina, the weatherman was calling 20-25 SW wind but in reality it was probably blowing 30-35.
We spoke to Captain Ned of Seabreeze sportfishing and he said we will sail
When we reach the tuna ground the sea was in a rage, the waves were 8-10ft high and water was crashing into the 58ft sportfisher.
At approximately 8am, while Arkady was steadily twitching and retrieving his lure Ilya saw a shadow under the surface missing Arkady's lure a couple of times, when the lure was 20ft from the boat the shadow grabs the lure and made a run! Fish on!
After a gruelling 25mins, the fish kind of gave up the fight and allowed Arkady to pump and retrieve, NO DEATH CIRCLES!!!
When the fish came up to the surface everyone was rolling on the deck...
The fish had tangled itself with the leader and was being brought in tail first, you could see the smile *from ear to ear* on Arkady's face.
While the mate (George) was bringing in the fish, Ned shouted down at us "more tuna behind the boat!" Sami and i quickly grabbed our rods and casted towards the wall of water Chris aka Entourage saw my lure hit the water and told me something is chasing it! i immediately gave it 2 short and hard jerks and ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz fish on and next to me Sami too was hooked. It was a pain fighting both fishes with a tuna already onboard and furthermore i did not have a belt on. Sami brought in his fish and released it after 20 mins, me...i had to pass over my rod, i have to admit i wasn't ready and i do not wanna risk upsetting the balance of mothernature in case i smash one of my b@$$ coz i stuck the rod between my legs Ilya was right next to me but had to hand it to Chris coz he was a lefty. Sad to say but the hook pulled after 5mins, the only consolation was that i saved my b@$$s and i got back my lure.
Later in the afternoon we had a Mako shark chewing on the teaser that George setup and even whales showed up around us!! That was a first time for me seeing whales in OI.
The weather continued to worsen and we called it a day at 2pm
These are some of the equipment we were using,
Souls performance studio 16 - Arkady, Ilya aka (surfmonster)and Sami.
Smith Tokara60 - Chris aka (CJB08) and myself.
OTI - Chris aka (Entourage).
Reels are all 01 and 08 Stellas.
Lines used were generally all Varivas and Daiwa(not sure).
Lures used - Souls Kanade (Sami), Meron Spirits (Myself)and Daiwa Dorado Slider (Arkady).
Alright now for the pictures everyone been waiting for

I had one of the finest tuna bites that I encounter so far this year, the reason for this statement as we caught fish on the jig and on popping gear.
I had the pleasure to fish side by side with Tony & Bret Baker, Brian and Michael.
We headed out of Hatteras on the Godspeed and made it to the 70 miles limit,
As soon we arrived to the fishing ground we saw most of the guys already hooked up, dropped some jigs and did not take a long time before Brian hooked up, fought the fish and get it to boat side after 10 to 15 minutes, it was a 70lb blue fin tuna with a lot of energy, we decided to release the fish and waited to gaff a bigger one,
Things start to die down but most of the troller’s are still catching fish,
Decided to put the jigging set up aside and give a shot with the casting rod,
All what it took is 2 twitch to see a monster shadow behind my lure and the captain screaming big fish, the boil that the fish created on the lure put me into shock but still manage to set the hook, fought the fish to the boat side after 50 minutes and made the call for the gaff,
The fish measured 70 inch x 50 inch and hit the scale of 207 lb.
During the fight Tony decided to throw stick bait and get inhaled right away and that put Bret on fire, he managed to grab my Tokara and it didn’t take much to had a strike and fish on, 3 guys fighting with no tangles and no problem, every body is doing the right thing, Tony manage to land his fish estimated at 130lb while Bret lost the fish due to pulled hook, from the fight I knew that Bret’s fish is big and it a shame not to have the chance to see it, but that is fishing and now he has a reason to come back,
After that we came in tight on the jig and landed 2 other fish in the 130lb to 150lb,
After all we went 5 out 7 and the captain made the call to head back at 12:30 pm as the weather start to change and Mother Nature has no mercy,
Looking forward to do it again!

             Sami.

       

Hatteras Mar 11th

Evan, Ilya, Milton, Aydan, Mike and myself headed out with the Tuna Duck in Hatteras, NC on Thursday. Although lately we all have hopes of landing double digit bluefin in this area, catching one quality bluefin can really make the day too.
Although we initially went to the Hatteras area the captain quickly realized the fish had all moved closer to Oregon Inlet so we chugged over there.
Ilya hooked the first BFT of the day using his Fisherman Spinoza 5120. He was really horsing the fish in despite what appeared to be a relatively large tuna. Ilya was using high drag and at one point when he was picking up some slack the tuna dove under the boat and everyone was shocked to hear a loud "PING" and looked over to see that the rod had snapped. So the first BFT would live to see another day.
We all continued to Jig but soon Tuna were busting all around the boat. In a flash, jigs came out of the water and topwater lures were flying through the sky. After a few lures hit the water, Evan came tight using an Ocea Pencil and began what would be a long fight.
While Evan fought, everyone else continued to jig and Mike also came tight with a BFT; double hookup! Mike made short work of the tuna and soon had what was probably a 60-70 pound BFT in the boat. We now had the age old dilemma: do we take the bird in hand or wait for the two in the bush? We decided to let the smaller bluefin go in hopes of landing what appeared to be a much larger BFT still battling in the water below.
After about 30 grueling minutes Evan realized that this tuna was in the for long haul and passed the rod. Over the course of the next hour, everyone helped out in landing what ended up being a 71" tuna; close to a 200 lb (weighed in at 195 at the dock after bleeding).
After the trophy BFT was landed, the action died down and no more tuna were hooked despite vigorous jigging. But at least everyone had their turn to fight a big tuna that day.
We did catch a couple of albacores too.
All in all, a really fun day despite only landing two bluefins (I guess that shows how spoiled we are that we lament over only landing ONLY TWO tuna :b)
Here are the pics: