5 July Rudee

I normally have great luck the week before the Virginia Beach Tuna Tournament and this week was no exception. Had Steady and Dave H onboard today. Had a couple of cancellations but we were locked and loaded to go this morning so off we went......Left at the crack of 0515 and headed towards the Hot dog to work with Dave and crew on Billable ours......We scored early with a couple of Bailers...kept to for Dave's refrigerator and returned the rest to the ocean to grow into bigger dolphin if they can learn to stop eating baits bigger than they did....wasn't a whole lot of action at the Hot dog so we went in search to an area I had heard was holding some nice Blue Fins....and it was.....we faught off tiny mahi until around 1100 when the long left rigger starts smoking.....nice fish on and he's hooked solid.....Steady gets the rod out of the T-top and we harness Dave into a belt and harness and the fight begins...those dam blue Fin are the hardest fighting tuna out there and this one worked Dave over pretty good but he's a tough guy and wouldn't give up.....had major drag on this fish and he wasn't budging....about 40 minutes later we are able to stick a couple of gaffs in the fish..he taped out at 57" and we thought we had us a citation......weighed the fish at the fishing center and he went 98 Pounds....just shy of a Citation for Dave H....

18 June Rudee

we left Owls creek at the crack of 0400, the wind was about 15 - 18 knots out of the north on the way out but calmed down beautifully in the afternoon. We did a drive by on the Weather buoy (which is still where it's supposed to be) and came up empty handed. At that point we started working South and east with High Hopes, Leaky Teaky, Waterman, Mad Hatter rounding out the group. All boats worked well together keeping each other informed. Our first bite came at about 350 fathoms and just was a nice Bull that Dave immediately jumped on the rod with cat like reflexes...years of Marine Corps training ensured Dave was Top Dog on the rod yesterday. Colt was a little tired from driving in from elizabeth city but would prove to be an outstanding Pit Man on Still Think'n...I really enjoy seeing guys come on the boat and jumping right into the game....not just sitting around waiting for Steady, Otter, Don or somebody else to do the rigging...If you get it wrong, well we'll letcha know and then show you the "Still Think'n" way of doing it...may not be the right way but it's my way....so we keep trolling to the deep and end up in 78 degree water...kind mixed green/blue but very pretty water.....got to the 1000 fathom line and turned north towards Leaky Teaky who said they got broke off by what they think was a Big-Eye on a TLD25......had something come in the spread and knock a couple of baits around about the same time Bob Sinclair report a Blue sighting.....was it a bill...well we'll never know because he didn't come tight......time to start trolling back inshore during which time my eagle Eye crew starts spotting scatter lumber...some held fish some didn't...it was very new wood so hadn't had time to set up yet but will be pretty awesome with the conditions over the next few days...this wood was in 500 fathoms about the 150 line - 180 line but will probably push inshore with the gulf stream pushing in the way it looks.....Found some two tones which turned out to be one of the biggest schools of Porpoise I've seen in a few years...acres of them with baby porpoise just putting on a show as you would see at Sea-World....getting a good 6 - 10 feet of air not more than 10 feet from the boat...you could feel the splash at times they were so close.....We thought this was the spot so I worked the two tones for about 2 hours before it was time to head in......Great day...great group of guys....Colt did a bang up job in the Pit....Don, as always on top of everything...and Dave was the Man on the rods yesterday and also spent alot of time in the Still Think'n Tower (on the gunnels) spotting debris for possible Mahi attack....Thanks for coming guys and we'll get out there in a few weeks.Here's what Captain Dave Wessner of Billable Ours looks like with a fishing pole in his hands.....He fast like a rabbit yesterday with the bites..

1 June Oregon Inlet Tuna Tournament

What a nice day Friday was....The absolute calmest conditions I have seen in a few years.....Ran out with Kent and the rest of the Pirates cove fleet and I must have looked at my position wrong when Water Dog asked for my position, I guess I was about 20 miles off.....in my defense however...Kent was about 15 miles off of where he said he was...I guess he must have looked at his GPS wrong also !...lol......conditions looked good where we set out....Tinker makerals everywhere...nice water...a Green sticker working the area but it was not to be in that location so we trolled to the Tuna hole looking for a good bite.....decided at about 1030 to head up to the 950 line to fish a little sliver of water I had seen on an Ocean temps s hot and found a 67 - 71 degree hard break with slicks everwhere...we're thinking it's gonna be loaded with YFT...well the Mahi onslaught ensued and never stopped the rest of the day....we landed probably about 60 mahi from 10 pounds up to 26 pounds....we kept 26 of them for table fair and commenced to release another 25 - 30 20 pound class Mahi !.....ran in at about 40 knots and weighed in our Mahi 26 pounder and held onto first place in that division for the remainder of the day.Day 2 we decided to pound it out with the fleet in the Tuna hole area...we laid down in fishy looking water and got lines in at 0730, fleet immediately laid down all around me but we worked it...marked fish several times but only had the Tuna come up for me once.....had a crash on the Get Reel TIki Bar...he comes off, then the left short gets hammers and Don's on it...then the left long gets hammered and mikes on that one....Don's comes unglued about five minutes into the fight....big Tuna but gone....Mikes fish comes to the boat all lit up and steady is on the leader...fish is doing his death circle and never gets up enough for a gaff shot when he comes unbuttoned at the boat....this one looked about 40 - 45 pounds to me.....Get lines back out and continued to troll from the 640 line to the 660 line with not another strike....winds are steadily increasing going from about 15 knots to about 25 knots around 1345 we take one over bow and over my console completely drenching me and the rest of the crew...we decided we had enough and with the seas building started heading in...the Inlet was howling..thank god it was a SW wind so it wasn't stacking up the waves but it must have been 40 knots as Kent said....three boats were blown ot out of the channel at various location from the inlet to the OIFC.......Had a great time working with Grady Man (Kent) and having a few beers with Randy and crew.....Neal (Wired up) and Dave (Billable Ours) were up there supporting and made some kick ass Mahi Taco's Friday night for us....I heard Felix the Kat, was there but didn't see him, saw Jeff from black Pearl on his way down to Hatteras, Shortcomings and his motley crew ( didn't see him 2nd night)......Just a fantastic time....We locked up the Outboard division and took some cash home...What a crew...Otter, Steady, Don and Mike worked like a well oiled machine....Dave has video of the Mahi Madness they were definatley on their A-Game....Huge thanks to MIke and Phil from G&H Lures who overnighted some new colors I wanted to give a try on Tuesday night...they were actually what got hit by the YFT on day2 and were absolutely destroyed by the Mahi on day 1.....Congrats to everyone who fished.....it was a good time and day 2 was not a day for the feint of heart for sure !.......Don and Dave have Pictures hopefully they'll get em posted uphere soon....Bob

15 May Rudee Inlet

Well..what can I say...Dave Trax Called me yesterday looking for a ride...I hadn't seen the sat shot yet so I told him I would call him back later....Got home..saw the shot, called work and said let's do it !....rounded up a crew of My Man Stready, Todd Beck, Dave Trax and Andrew....great guys all of em.....we left Rudee at approximately 0415ish and started rolling...beautiful ride out, rolling swells, minimul wind until we hit the hot water at the 220 line in about 300 fathoms...We get a spread out at about 0650 and start trolling north...beautiful water, birds, slicks , all you could ask for.....we got hammered by Football size Blue fin tuna and went 7 for 7 on that round....kept 1 as allowed by NMFS and released the rest.....trolled north....and bam...3 nice Mahi are on...we land all of them and continue on...get to about the 350 line and the temp starts going from 71 to 69 degrees and wam....6 YFT on.....3 anglers get on a rod....Steady is clearning the Planer rod and WAM he gets hit....4 fish hooked up right....I get off the wheel and clear line so we now have 4 tight and anglers are fighting fish....steady gets his fish to the boat and I Leader the fish and steady sticks the rod in the holder and sticks the fish....he's putting his fish in the box and I gaff Andy's fish and get him in the boat....Todd Beck is next up he meets steel and visits Still Think'n fish box....TRAX fish is boatside and on leader and line gets under the boat and pops....ok...3 in the boat.....we regroup and get lines out again and bam...fish on the shotgun, BAM...fish on the left long.....Trax is on one of the fish and Todd is on the other one.....Trax's fish starts running to the boat and Dave is cranking like crazy...and then the fish turns and his mainline pops....must've got chaffed from one of the other lines....But we work Todd's fish in and get him in the box.....Troll, troll, troll...big ass Mahi hits the left long and steady is on it....get this Mahi in the box and he goes 38.8 pounds....dam nice fish....pulled lines at 1 and headed in....dam great day out there....I feel better now about last week....The fish are definately in the water if we get another chance at them....here's some shots from the day....bob

11 May oregon Inlet

Well..first of all thank to Billable Dave, Otter and Don for going fishing with me on a sketchy forecast. I saw a window for some great weather sandwiched between two fronts and knew that the bite would be on. And it was on in a big way but just not for Still Think'n this week. We hit the inlet with the first charter boat heading out and there were a few bumps in the inlet but nothing bad. Once we crossed the bar the seas laid out, the wind was dead ass calm and the heavens opened up and it was the absolute best weather day fishing for me this year. No wind to speak of all day, beautiful swells and just great company.The Big eye bite definatley turned on yesterday and we were right in the middle of it, but we could not buy a Tuna bite yesterday to save our necks. We zigged, zagged, changed baits, changed speeds and did everything we could think of to get a fish to hit. All around us boats stopped fighting large Tuna....Thanks to C-note Connor for calling us and the entire OI fleet into an awesome weedline holding some really nice Mahi Mahi. We spent about 30 minutes just getting the skunk off the boat and a little meat in the boat and went back to banging it out trying to catch a Tuna....but yesterday was not to be our day. We all talked about it and there was nothing else we could have done, just wasn't our day...Final talley - 5 gaffer/hoister Mahiweather - absolutely beautifulGreat day on the water with great friends....going to be out there again next weekend so hopefully we get the voodoo off the boat !...and land some Tuna..

26 April Oregon Inlet

Well...my crew from left week needed time to recoup so I rounded up a fresh group of anglers consisting of Otter, Surfer Dave and Captain Neal of the wired up,...left my house bright and early at 0250ish and got to the inlet around 0450....finally got underway around 0530 as the fleet was late leaving due to a accident on the causeway....Beautiful day out there..little breezy but not too bad.....slow fishing...we boated a couple of Gaffer Mahi early in the morning and then ended the day out with a lone YFT which was the first one of the year for Still Think'n.....great time was had by all....had fun working with Kent...Saw Ktrain coming back from hatteras..he had some trailer problems on the way home though......So...until next time....Still Think'n out.....

19 April Long trip

Well...my wide load permit for my 10'6 fatass beam did not arrive so I made the call to leave from Rudee Inlet this morning at 3AM Sharp....onboard were Billable Ours Dave, Skinnys Kid Don, JSuperjeff (Jeff) and Steady....the weather was definately not light and variable for the 105 mile run south to where the water had pushed out to...we ran to where the last good shot was and the water was nasty Green and cold....so we picked up and headed directly into the SW wind at 20Kts and ended up finding the edge at around the 500 line south of the point...we proceeded to catch a bunch fo peanut and finally get a nice 17 pound Bull on the line which the crew made short work of....called lines in around 1PM cause we had a long run back and I was frankly worried about gas.....ended up back at Fishing center around 4PM for a total round trip of 275 miles today !...wow....awesome day but bumpy and long....here's a couple of pics..

18 February Fishing

Went out around 1100 with Todd (Knot Wish'n) for a little recon....actually we were both bored on a holiday and the weather was really good so we gave it a shot...Ended up limited out off the Ramada right around the 3 mile line with about 9 other boats.....fish were not hot and heavy but man there were marks/birds and everything else out there.....Cleaned the boat and fish in 72 Degree weather in late February....awesome...Thanks for going with me today Todd...