It took a week, but the wind finally calmed down. Keith and I had been itching to try some Gulf Stream fishing again. Of particular interest this fall is our desire to get a few tuna and/or wahoo. We went out on Thursday of last week with local Captain Stevie Wilson and his first mate Josh aboard "Dream Girl". We have become friends with them, and decided to go out with them to see if they could give us some professional pointers. The weather was quite nice with light wind and calm seas. Unfortunately we had several bites but got no fish into the boat all day. Everyone was frustrated, but it is called fishing not catching for a reason. Four days later on Monday, Keith and I decided to give the Gulf Stream another try with Southern Style. The boat needed to be run anyway, so off we went first thing in the morning.
Southern Style heading out to the Gulf Stream (picture courtesy of friend and fellow fisherman, Shea Trainer)
Unfortunately, once again we were skunked. After fishing all day, we had one very small tuna that bit but came off the line before we got him to the boat. Where are all the fish? Everyone out that day had a tough time. I heard several fishing boats talking on the VHF radio and all were having a terrible time trying to find any fish. Shea and his boat came home without any fish as well. It was a disappointing day on the water to say the least.
So in an effort to shake off the bad "mo jo", the next day Keith and I went to Portsmouth. Keith dropped me at the inlet and he took the dinghy around the backside of the island to the new inlet formed by hurricane Dorian last year. I walked along the old inlet then around the corner and onto the ocean side of the island. Once on the ocean I walked the roughly 2 miles to the new inlet to meet up with Keith. The recent wind storms had changed the beach a bit and there were quite a few shells washed up.
Shells littering the beach at the Portsmouth/Ocracoke Inlet
Admittedly I do not need any more shells, but I just can not seem to pass them by when I see something cool or a nice Scotch bonnet. We may need a bigger boat to store all the shells. There were some larger shells around also. These really only show up when there has been a storm. I could not take all of the whelk shells back to the boat, but here are some I left on the beach.
Over the course of two trips this week to Portsmouth, I collected a nice number of treasures. Here are some pictures of my loot.
Another day's treasures
Somebody make me stop this madness!!!! I can't help myself.
I also saw this cool Calico box crab shell
Several puffer fish (aka blow-fish or toad-fish) were washed up on the beach. These are common around here. They can expand there bodies when in danger and this makes there poisonous spines stick out prominently.
Once I got down to the new inlet, Keith picked me up with the dinghy.
This is the new inlet with our dinghy in the far right.
This is looking toward the east down the inlet to the ocean
Keith had good luck fishing. There seem to be plenty of fish in the new inlet, particularly red drum.
He caught 4 different species of fish.
Keith's catch from top to bottom (bluefish, red drum, flounder, and speckled trout). This was our last flounder of the season as it ended September 30th). You can only keep one red drum daily, so Keith had to release the other drum he caught.
At least the fishing at the inlet was good. It made up for the bad luck we have had off-shore. It looks like the wind will be picking up again for a few days. This will probably keep us off the water for a bit, but hopefully we can get back out there soon.
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