just back from Cape Lookout

[hoymark Profile]

more details and pics to follow, but just back from 3 days of albie fishing. Arrived late thursday. Later than usual start friday morning by design as it was blowin pretty good. 2 boats, 6 guys, fished the west beaches. Everyone caught fish except me. Fish were all good sized. Saturday was near slick and beautiful. Went east thru the shoals and was treated to birds and bait balls. One of our boats was hooked up with doubles and triples for a couple hours as they watched the bait ball go from house size to bus size to just big enough to fit under the boat. The men in gray suits were in the mix which made it interesting. Fish were of the 6-8 pound variety. Yesterday was overcast, spitting rain and windy...in other words, just about perfect. Reports of fish around rock jetties did not pan out so across the shoals we went. Started slow, but we eventually found them. Wasn't easy with big swells, white caps, etc. Our boat managed 20 between 2 of us. Other boat got some as well. Laid down later in day as did the fishing. Olive and white with some flash seemed to be the ticket although a few others were caught with Gummies trimmed short or small red/brown clousers especially around bait balls. Best technique turned out to be casting over entire bait ball and letting drift through with little to no action other than preventing slack in the line. Today we also caught the majority of our fish casting out to where they just were, letting some line out and then stripping back in.
Hardly epic, but still really good. Don't know what remains of the season, but suspect it is winding down.
Mark Hoy