Late Feb Fishing report

Catching up the last handful of trips.  The fish are getting in heavy bunches tight together and getting a little tougher to catch for the striper marks we are getting.  Happens every year late winter seems they are getting into pre spawn mode.  I have not seen any milking on the deck yet.  Seems like one day the fishing is off the hook and then the next a struggle.  Congrats to 75 year old Ken Segner , 73 year old running partner, and Albert for whacking them on the jig.  Still getting it done fellas pretty work.  On the 18th ole Jr and Tom came out of the blocks on "JR" time.  Leaving late was the right call.  It worked out great.  Full moon but the bite was off.  Late in the afternoon the picky biting stripers went off and we whacked them with only Ches still out since everyone went in.  It was cool to see bunches of stripers loping in the little whale bait just subsurface all around the boat.  The small jigs seem to get more bites but staying with the bigger stuff weeded out the dinks and on the am trip on the 19th Congrats to Chris Duval for landing a nice 54lber this morning.  Afternoon the wind was screaming but we picked out a nice catch of fish releasing a few as well.  Back on the war path with Randy on the 21st.  Hard west winds kept us tight to the beach and after we ran past Corolla light we had to swing out to find something.  We also had the cool Nat Geo underwater director film guy that did Blue Planet and all trying to get some striper footage.  He tried one spot diving down to the bottom, but no luck.  When we finally got on a good jigging bite late late, the light was too low.  We did however get him to crank in three trolled fish and he also landed four or five jigging.  So we may have planted the seed for a future jjigger!  Randy got the biggest fish of the day a 35 lber.  I also jigged up five or six myself.  Wish we had more time on em but 24 miles from the inlet we needed to go. Oh yea trawl season opens back up Friday, all I can say is wow! Stripers thanks for trying out we will send you a letter, see ya never!  Better luck next year.

Not a turkey!

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Today we got some nice Stripers with one 43lbs! Heard Rock Solid had a 54lbs one,good job. The Ocean has been full of life,lots of whales and bait fish. Got some open days so give us a call. Thanks

Nice one!

Team cb

Take your kids fishing!

Thursday night last thing weather man said... zero percent chance of rain tomorrow.  15knots from the East and 37 degrees and cold rain.  With the 8 by 8 hard top and the ghetto curtains we stayed dry.  Finally after hours of mindless trolling we wandered our way into a good striper bite. I am sure the crew that flew all the way from Texas were thinking what the heck have we got ourselves into!?!   Now we were stoked.  We landed some fat fish into the forties but could not best Ches's 54lber that day!  Friday off we went and the bite picked up where we left off.  Only problem a bunch of boats and the bite did not last long .  I decided to look elsewhere.  I meandered North to Kill Devil Hills and ran into the super hoover giant radar Ches bay boats all the way down here looking for fish!  Figured I better turn around and try to grind it out.  It was slow slow going three bites and one fish to show for our efforts.  Then as the sun started to dip and everyone went home, the fishing went off! Off the bottom the fish rose and casting trolling whatever, fish on.  Big fish as well!  Biggest of the bunch was a 49 inch long 51lber!  Congrats to the texas crew for coming up big!
Yesterday the Watkins family came out and hit it big right out of the gates.  We trolled up many fat stripers into the low forties.  The the mission of the morning was complete Young gun Jacob Watkins landed his first big fish with his family.  Everyone was happy.  The bite died around 10.

Headed back out in the afternoon... well never marked a scale never had a bite even close to dark.  Every boat seemed to be having tough luck.  The bite had just shut down. Sorry for the crappy afternoon trip. All our fish were released the last few days.
Trawler season has open up again today and business as usual. I guess there is a "little more quota" left in the endless quota.
Looks like weather will keep us in for a day or two.  Fishing has become a little spotty but if you get in them they seem to be fat cats.  Thanks everyone for fishing.

CAROLINA BLUE

CAROLINA BLUE

It was a slow start for the Rock Solid and the Carolina Blue,but by the end of our day, the fishing was as good as it gets. Got on a very good jig bite with some pig size fish.The Rock Solid had one that was 51lbs,we could'nt find a another 53 pounder only a "little" 47 ha ha! Thanks for a great few days Jason and The Texas Crew.

Texas Crew

Bigger if your from Texas,53lbs is big like Texas! Nice job guys,hope that one wins the bet for ya'll. Nice fish today with most of them over 35lbs. On a sad note the trawlers got re opened yet again today. The never ending quota, seriously pee on my leg it 's raining fish! If you think you can't help you are wrong you can. You have a vote,call your local politician and let them know how we feel about this. Now back to the fishing. Can the Carolina Blue crew catch a bigger Striped Bass than the Rock Solid and crew ? Stay tuned... Thanks, Capt Ches

Last Buffalo

A gentleman once asked me "how can you guys stomach that crap rammed down your throat everyday?"  He was referring to us as charter guys watching as are livelihoods being ruined by a select few. Everyone is scared to make waves.  The utter waste that has been going on for years and has to stop.  The indiscriminate gear is on the verge of putting a natural resource to it's knees and is ruining the lives of  of many watermen.  This hurts the charter industry, the recreational industry, the honest commercial watermen trying to eek out a living.  It burns me to the core to watch this destruction.  It blows my mind that so many do nothing...nothing.  This is not a time to stick out your chest and brag about how great your fishing is and turn your back on the real problems at hand.  You know better.  And do nothing.  Well if we undergo another moratorium on stripers then you will complain, but it's gonna be too late.  I do not like to get into the politics of fisheries but we are forced to.
The 3rd of Feb we tried to fish but could not get out across the rough bar.  We then noticed hundreds of discarded dead or dying stripers.  We went back to the dock bummed about what we had seen.  I did not even know but my guys went over to the coast guard house and complained.  Nothing could be done.  Other boats that did make it into the ocean saw what was said to me to be worse "than the couple days back in January."  There are even some helicopter shots.  I will try to get some up there for you.  Thirty charter boats the next day got skunked. Interesting. This picture is from last night from a lady beachcoming and stopped counting at 90 decomposing rock on the beach. Four seasons ago I made a "last buffalo" post trying to bring some light to this topic. I will try to post some contact info for anyone interested.  I know there is a meeting open for public hearing coming up soon, so maybe this can shed some light on this debacle.  What is right is right.
Well the fishing has starting to pick back up and boats are catching again so not all is lost...

Mamby Pamby Land!?!

Fishing has been great on the Rock Solid lately.  I have not undated since the 27th trip.  We have had a real large body of fish off the Kitty Hawk/ KDH area.  Well same perennial anglers on the Fri.  and Sat.  We whacked them all day jigging even landed them on fly on Fri. .  Somewhere 50 plus fish.  One forty pounder released and most everything in the 12-25lb class.  Fish are on the small whale bait minnows and picky birds and just does not seem like you catch the mobys in that bait.  So the next day I pitched "lets go south"  we will not have to fish in 500 boats on a calm Sat and when we find them they will be the piggies!   Last couple times I tried this it worked to the tune of a pair of 54 lbers , 48, and a 42.  Also another time 350lbs of fish on a 10 fish limit.  Thanks to all my friends up the beach who called me to tell me they were whacking them.  Off we went at the crack of ten way down South to Mamby Pamby land.  We found a huge area of whales and floating fatbacks on the surface with hundreds on gannnets hanging on the water.  Looked like we missed the bite with only scales and feathers to look at.  Fatback marks dogshark marks and no stripers to get....  Out down and in and out we looked..looked like I chose poorly...We even fished some surefire humps and ledges...  Well at least we were not scared.  Talking with my buddies up North the bite had died and running up this late in the game was not a choice anyways. The morning up the beach sounded so good looks like you could of trolled a hotdog and caught them.  So next time you find yourself out to lunch in Mamby Pamby land you can laugh and think of me.  Guess what,  I would try it again! 
       Sunday we went North up to Kitty Hawk and whacked them pretty darn good with the Johnson party.  We landed them jigging and trolling. 

Monday we got pushed off a day with strong winds and rough seas.  Yesterday the fog bowl was back out but we found excellent jigging with super Capps whacking 50 plus fish jigging in huge clounds of striper marks.  It was pretty cool we had 2.5 knots of downtide and we could just about dead stick the shads and we kept two-four fish on all morning and early afternoon. 
30+ mph winds kept us off today.  Thanks everyone!!

Sorry for the late post guys.  Its been kinda crazy for me.  Fish with Pat and his crew from jersey on Saturday and Fred on Friday.  Had to great trips.  On Friday we jigged for rock with 6lbs.  That sure made things different and exciting.  Saturday with Pat we did more trolling and really had a good time with a big box of fish to go home with.

The fishing was good yet again today. The fog was on the thick side, but why do you need to see the bow of the boat any way! Thank you to Capt York on the Gal O Mine for watching out for us today, it's nice to have guys like him out there. And a congratulations to Matt & Nora on their new baby girl! Good job guys. Any one who wants to catch a nice Rock Fish now as good as it gets. Thanks, Capt Ches

New southern run citation

New citation on the southern run. Baby alexa weighted in a 7 lbs 12 oz at outer banks hospital. Excited to be home with my little girl.  Hopefully be back out fishing soon.  Capt matt