Still Think'n Sport Fishing

Well where to start, it’s been a great offshore season for 2010 and it’s not quite over yet.  I thought I would recap some of the highlights of the year..

20 March started the season for us with a great Blue Fin run out of Hatteras.  We trailered the boat down to Hatteras Harbor and gave it a shot, Onboard for this trip was Otter, Don, Mike Winner and Jeff Brown, AKA Fatbeard.  Most of the boats were jigging but we did not have jigging gear onboard so we trolled…we were one of the lucky ones and came tight on the right long rigger, Blue and White G&H Sea witch…Mike Winner was the lucky lad on the rod this day and after about an hour fight we put the steel to a 150 Pound Blue Fin Tuna, first of the year, but not the last….

With the fish moving to the North, we launched a couple of weeks later in April out of Oregon Inlet to chase the Blues…we trolled and trolled and trolled and didn’t get a sniff…the Big Blue Fin were rolling on the surface and we were bumping them in the head with our baits, but they wanted nothing to do with it.  Out comes Get Reel Lure jigs but we don’t have a jigging rod…OK, hook those jigs up to a 50 wide and start working..we had multiple hits and came tight on at least 6 fish but they kept breaking off or loosing the hook…Otter finally comes tight and the fight is on.  With full harness it take Otter about an hour to finally put a 170 pound, 70 inch Blue fin in the box…This is a nice fish for sure !..

Next trip is not until 16 May and we make our first run out of Rudee Inlet to fish our home waters..we ended up in the deep at the 000′s and this would be my first Tuna Slam, we boated a small Big-eye Tuna, a Yellow fin tuna and a small Blue Fin to complete the trifecta….another good trip for the 2010 season…

30 may we would hit oregon Inlet again for the Dolphin run.  I had a couple of my buddies from Maryland down and we got some nice ones for sure..Here’s Jim and Cody with their first Mahi ever…..

12 June we decide to run out of Rudee to some nice looking water way out overboard east of the Canyon…we fished hard at around 800 fathoms and were rewarded with the First White Marlin release out of Virginia Beach for the 2010 season, we also caught some nice Mahi and had a triple header on 50 pound class Yellow Fin…this was a great day for sure..

I’ll continue in the next edition of Still Think’n 2010, lots of Tuna, Mahi and Marlin to come….Bob

I have been a little hesitant on posting about the VB Tuna Tournament.  It was really not a great bite as is normally the case.  There were some Blue Fin caught, and at least 1 YFT caught, but the numbers were somewhat lacking this year. 

My plan this year was to try and put three nice YFT in the box vice putting one medium Blue Fin.  With the rules change this year, that is what I thought would be the best laid plan.  So with that in mind we pointed Still Think’n towards the Norfolk Canyon, where I had caught YFT the previous three trips.  I figured if they were there and we could get em to bite then we would be in good shape.  Lines in at 0730 and while Don is letting out the right short rigger BAM, nice Mahi on….he scaled out to 20.7 pounds and we thought we were going to have a fantastic day.  0734 and we already have a nice fish on ice !  well, that was not the way it turned out.  We worked the Canyon from the western tip out t0 the 500 fathom tip and back down the north side with nothing to show but a few small Mahi and one lone Skipjack Tuna to show for it.  There was plenty of life with pilot whales and big grey porpoise but the YFT were not cooperating with us this day. 

about 1 we pulled lines and headed in to the fingers to try and find a late bite on the Blue Fin.  We were in good company when we caught there with Canyon Express, Waterman and several other boats working the area.  We saw a couple of boats hook up, one of them with a White Marlin but we did not get a sniff in the 45 minutes we had left to troll.  Looking back now I would not have changed a thing other than getting some bites from YFT, but our plan was solid, as it is in Tournament fishing,  you make a plan and stick to it, 

As Don was cleaning the Mahi, we discovered some plastic in it’s belly, to include the now Famous Watergun !   Very funny, yet somewhat disturbing….

Not much more to say to this…thanks to Don, Steady, Craig Irwin and Mike..with special acknowledgement to Dave Wessner (Billable ours) who was entered with the team but work called him away on our fishing day….Not much fishing for me since that tournament, with the winds 20Kts out of the SW we’re waiting for more favorable conditions hoping for next weekend but we’ll see…

Don’t forget the Blue Water Classic coming up next month..it’s always a great tournament !……Bob

Long long day yesterday.  Had Black Pearl, Cirwin, Don and Mark onboard for what turned out to be almost 12 hours of lines in the water !…We left Owls Creek with no firm plan in mind.  I had heard of a pretty good bite down at the 900 line but had other plans today.  We stopped at the Hot dog first at 0515 and put lines in just as the false dawn was breaking on the horizon.  No marks but I had heard of a great bite the day before so we gave it a good hour and a half with nothing to show for it.  pulled lines and shot up to the 21Fathom finger and decided to troll up the finger trying to find a good size Blue Fin to put in the box….nothing, just small blue Fish chomping my baits in half.  So we pulled lines again and headed up to the Canyon to find out what’s happening…lines in there and we finally get a hit, nice Yellow Fin slams the right Short TIki Bar and is  hooked up solid.  Mark is on the rod and makes quick work of this fish with a great gaff shot by Don…..work that area for an hour with no other hits to show for it….

pulled lines and headed to the fingers for an afternoon shot at the Blue fin with no shows and headed to the hot dog again for a few minutes….we pulled lines at 1600 and headed to the barn….1 hit, 1 kill….long day…

Great fishing with Craig, Jeff, Mark and Don…as usual the after the catch time at the Bar-go-la was full of good times..we really need to record this….

Until next time…Here’s a couple of video’s (Unedited as of now) of the new Pit Cam on Still Think’n…

Still Think\’n Running

What a fantastic June day to be offshore out of Virginia Beach. The ocean was a mill pond most of the day. The temps were hovering in the mid 70′s and the fish were snapping. We launched still think’n at Owls creek at approximately 0345 with visions of all kind of fish jumping in the boat. We ended up with a GPS track to the 450 line in about 1200 fathoms, which is where the offshore gulf stream eddy was pushing in. We arrived at approximately 0700 to Clear dark blue, 74 degree gulf stream water. There was scattered weed, whales, jumping dolphins, Mola mola. It was like a national geographic show out there today.
Crew consisted of myself, Otter, John Hamilton and Dale kling and we immediately got to work getting the spread out. Not long after we get set we get a double of slinger Mahi jumping on the baits, got them in the boat and set out the spread. around 0930 the left shoft comes out of the clip, not hard but in that subtle knockdown that just screams White Marlin. I see the bill whacking at the left short bait and otter starts dropping back. At this time the Left Long G&H Blue and White sea witch come down and John is immediately on the rod feeding the fish. He hooks up tight and we’re on to the first white marlin for us this year. Lines clear I begin backing down still think’n to get the release fairly quickly. I got some great Video which my man Don is editing and hope to have it up tonight. but anyways, we get the bill and this fish is very green as Otter is trying to control him. We ended up cutting the line as he was just too fired up to get control of him to get the hook out. He ended up jumping away happily.

about 20 minutes later I’m looking ahead and I hear all kinds of commotion in the back, and about this time I hear the rod start screaming…we’re tight to a Blue Marlin, fish jumps and lands on the Get Reel Tiki bar and breaks the leader on the stinger bait. Apprenlty from the way the crew described it, the fish came up like jaws and just destroyed the Tiki Spreader bar, he looked like a good solid 350 – 400 pounder.

We ended up picking at Mahi for the rest of the day before we get to the 500 fathom tip of the Norfolk Canyon. Little birds picking everywhere, squid all lit up on the screen..I’m thinking this is it…as I’m thinking this Bam, Bam two rods go down..definately not Mahi this time…then a huge crash on the Get Reel Tiki Bar and we’re tight to 3 nice YFT…we unweave the tangle the YFT can sometimes make when you have multiple fish on and everybody did a great job landing all three.

it’s now 3 and the winds are starting to pick up so we pull lines in, call in the rest of the fleet to enjoy the apparent schools of YFT that are biting and head home….Great day for sure….great talking to all the VBSF folks milling about the Norfolk Canyon out there…..

What a great day.  We left Virginia Beach at the crack of 0300 and arrived out the Oregon Inlet Ramps at 0500.  Launched the boat and headed out for a beautiful day of fishing.  Although the forecast was off by about 15 knots, we still were able to get a nice spread out to entice some fresh meat to come aboard.  We ended up fishing the Tuna hole all day with results of 5 nice Gaffer and 1 missed Yellow Fin Tuna opportunity.  Reports for the rest of the summer will be here !