By Jake Bussolini:
By Jake Bussolini:Each year our small fishing group from Mooresville, North Carolina travels to Hatteras just before and just after the tourist season to spend a few days together exchanging fishing stories, enjoying comradery and of course seeking some fine fishing. I usually schedule my portion of this trip to permit at least two offshore fishing trips on the Hatteras Fever II. Captain Buddy Hooper seems always to find the fish for our group. This year our spring trip was no exception. It seems that late April was ideal for targeting the normally elusive yellowfin tuna.
The yellowfin tuna have been escaping our efforts for several years, but this year we hit the jackpot. The yellowfin is much smaller than the popular bluefin tuna, rarely growing larger than 300 pounds. We were not after fish quite that big, hoping for fish ranging from 20 to 30 pounds. Since we were not specifically fishing for tuna, trolling ballyhoo would provide a variety of catches including mahi-mahi, wahoo and hopefully a tuna or two.
Yellowfin tuna generally hang out in the same waters as the other species just mentioned. They are generally in the upper layers of the ocean waters and often gather near flotsam, much like the mahi. Tuna, unlike many other fish species, are warm blooded; their warm muscles permit them to swim at very high speeds often reaching speeds of 50 miles per hour. This makes them excellent predators for fast swimming bait such as flying fish. On this day we were seeing many large groups of flying fish, offering us encouragement that the yellowfins might be close by and would be attracted to our fast moving ballyhoo baits.
The day started slowly, in terms of catching activity, but when the bite started, it was great fishing. When the action ended, we had boated 13 yellowfins and a few mahi-mahi. The largest tuna was this 35 pound yellow fin caught by Peter Enyeart, shown with mate Carey Foster who helped him keep the fish calm for the photo.
Each time I travel to Hatteras, I try to schedule at least one day of red fishing in the grass flats off of Ocracoke Island in the Pamlico Sound. My preferred guide for these red fishing trips is Aaron Aaron with his 24 foot Kenn-Craft boat driven by a 175 hp. Evinrude motor. Aaron has a lift on his motor so he can traverse some very shallow water. He also is an expert spotter, regularly spotting schools of reds from the tower on the boat. The previous day, the larger redfish ranging in weight from 15 to 20 pounds were very active in the breakwaters of the inlet, but we decided to fish in the morning to get quantity rather than quality. We had a very good morning boating more than 10 nice reds. Of course we were only able to keep three to eat but the catch rate was better than I expected. All of the fish were caught using spinning gear and gold weedless spoons.
Jake Bussolini is a freelance writer who has written six books about fresh and salt water fishing. His books can be previewed at www.booksbyjake.com.