BL WOW What a whopper. You must be on a charter? I love mahi-mahi
.. Yesterdays fishing report: we caught 4 Yellowfin Tuna in the 90 to 120 lbs range, 2 Mahi-mahi and a huge Wahoo .. headed to the marina now ..
Actually tsk we are four guys fishing off of my friend Kirk's (Captain Kirk) 24 ft Grady White offshore boat called Patty's Pride. Kirk's wife.
We head out from Teach's Lair Marina before sunrise (calm water) through the very tricky Hatteras Inlet on fair weather days only. We're usually back at the dock by 2-4 pm.
The west edge of the Gulf Stream is "only" about 12 to 20 miles out.
You quickly go from the relatively cool shallow green inshore water of the Labrador Current on the continental shelf to the deep warm blue water of the Gulf Stream and the waters depth on the depth finder drops off like a rock. (hundreds of feet to thousands of feet)
At the convergence of the Green and Blue water linear "weed lines" form sometimes for miles maybe 20 to 50 feet wide.
See pic below taken off FL coast as an example.
Those lines or rafts of naturally occurring flodsam (seaweed and such) 'hold' the bait fish under them.
You guessed it that's were the big boys lurk.
We troll along the edges of these weed lines with 8 poles and lines out.
Where the Sea Gulls are dive bombing the water, that's where the schools of bait fish are with the big guys right below.
We seldom need to use a fish finder as we just follow the gulls by sight.
Once you get on the tuna, mahi, wahoo's etc you can fill all of the boats coolers very quickly.
We call it Tuna mayhem.
If one pole gets "hit" then usually multiple poles get hit all at once.
Then it's game on and the Tuna mayhem commences .. all hands on deck .. this is a precarious and potentially dangerous time. All items on deck must be carefully secured or stowed. Your not watching where your feet are, you are watching the line and the fish on the end of it. Unused poles, lines, big hooks and gaffs must be secured for safety while you play the fish with a fighting lap belt on.
The weather conditions for offshore fishing have been absolutely stellar. Calm seas, light wind and perfect temps.
Yesterday 05/02/24 we caught 4 Yellowfin Tuna in the 90 to 120 lbs range, 2 Mahi-mahi and a huge Wahoo.
Captain Kirk has a NC commercial fishing license so we can sell the ones we don't keep for good $$$ at the dock.
Kirk also has a high end food vacuum sealer for the coolers full of steaks we do bring home.
Some years we catch enough fish to cover the cost of the entire one week trip.
Gas for the truck from/to NJ, house rental, bait, ice and the big one fuel for the boat.
One year I came home with more money than I left with, a huge Igloo cooler full of fish steaks all after having a total blast the whole darn time.
The pic below is of another bull Dolphin fish I caught many many moons ago in the same location.
I don't know the exact weight of it or it's length, but I'm 6' 3" and the nose of it is on the deck so we figured solidly over 60".
One arm is holding onto the hard Bimini top and it was pretty hard to hold up the fish with the other arm so we figured it was around 50 lbs.
It was so big we had to cut it in half to fit it in the cooler. Unfortunately the photog (Patty) didn't get the whole fish in the pic but the seas were rough out that day and the boat was really rocking n rolling.
. I like it better than Aloha Shoyu. 
