Wilmington, NC Jigging - May 31, 2008

well, another lights out trip, as expected!!!

I met up with Glenn in the Charlotte airport and had a few drinks and some food before catching the flight to Wilmington to meet up with everyone else. The group ended up being: myself, my dad, Glenn, Al (who had both hips replaced only 2 months ago!!!), Gene, Gene's Friend (Mike I think), Sami from Anglers-Proshop and his mentor. We all had dinner, then went back to catch some sleep, since we wanted to leave the dock at 430AM.

We headed out in pitch blackness into SLOP. We got demolished on the 70-mile ride out. BUT, it was worth it! One drop, one fish. ALL day long. This place is crazy. I have never fished anywhere where you can consistently catch big, strong fish all the time. We each caught easily 25+ fish, and we only limited ourselves to that bc we got so tired!

Chip again was an awesome captain and really fun to fish with. I highly recommend him if you plan a trip there. It was great to finally meet and fish with Glenn, I look forward to it again soon. No one wanted to come on Chip's boat it seemed as everyone knew it was rough and his boat is smaller (23' vs 31'). So we had the 4 of us on that boat (myself, my dad, Glenn and Chip) whereas the other boat had 7 guys. Fine by me!!!

The main gear used was:

- 08 Stella 20k and Hot's 5'2 Wei World (OTI 80lb)
- Stella 10k FA and OTI 600g (JB 80lb)
- Accurate 665 2 spd and JM 500g (Zenaq PE8)
- Trinidad 40N and Tuna Max 53XXH (Daiwa PE6)

I have to say, I used the Trinidad a lot and loved the narrow spool for jigging. It is much more convenient. I may need to buy one now!!!

The jigs that we used predominantly were the Nagamasa 400g (Glenn LOVED this), almost all OTI chartreuse jigs, Williamson Abyss 14oz and the River2Sea Sea Rock 400g. I loved the River2Sea. I probably caught over a dozen fish with it.

There were a few fish caught on topwater. Sami caught 2 mahi, Arlen raised a sailfish but didn't connect, Chip caught a baby blackfin and Glenn had a mahi before it spit the hook. We didn't go inshore for grouper since we were all so tired by then!!!!

Even despite the conditions, everyone had a great time. Again, if you want fishing like you've never seen, give this a try, you won't regret it!

We couldn't get out on Sunday due to the weather, but it didn't matter. Most of us were too sore and beat up to fish again anyway!!!!

Here are some pics. Ill try to post my video soon

One of my Dad's nice AJs

Another one

Not a bad one

All day long

Al is crazy, 2 replaced hips doesn't stop him!

Almaco Jack

Chip hooked up using the new Smith Mariana

Multiple people hooked up at once is normal

Gene's nice mahi on a jig

Glenn's big boy!

Hooked up!

Sami and his Beast

Zitat von milchner

Hi Bret,

thanks for sharing. One question: I see on the pictures that this guys use very bright jigs. What type of jigs are they and is it coincidence or pure intention?

Uwe (who gets more and more interested in jigging)

Alles anzeigen

The jigs shown in this picture include OTI Jitterbell, OTI Jumbo, River 2 Sea Sea Rock and Williamson Abyss. During the daytime I do like bright glow jigs, but we have found that in NC the color orange works quite well. Pink is always another hot color.

There were many other jigs used including Smith Nagamasa, Fisherman Andaman's and Hots Drift Tune.

In my experience, amberjacks love long jigs which is why I love the OTI Jitterbell jig which is extremely long and sinks quickly. These fish are normally at 250-300' in this area so we need to be able to drop quickly.

This area in NC also has a lot of kingfish and wahoo, so I advise anyone who jigs here not to use super-expensive jigs since you are bound to lose some due to bite-offs by these fish.

yeah i know dave, great guy :). i keep trying to get together and fish with him - but hes a busy guy!

they do have some monsters over there. the niec part is that there isnt a ton of structure so you can jig them without using ridiculous drag (15kg+). here in the gulf, they hang at oil rigs a lot and if you let them take any line, they will wrap you around a leg and break you off. really tough jigging. even on 25kg fish you need to lock down the drag and thumb the spool!

Dave you shouyld definitely come try amberjack jigging in NC if you love jigging. not only amberjack, but you can get grouper, african pompano, mahi, cobia, false albacore and wahoo in the same spot :).

personally im a tuna guy, but with amberjack you can be sure you'll be hooked up all day long