Feeling Blue?

Offshore fishing gets rolling this month off North Carolina’s Cape Lookout

May is an exciting month for offshore fishermen, the month they’ve been waiting for all winter, a prelude to the hot summer and one of the best months of fishing along the Crystal Coast.

The strong spring winds are beginning to subside, and more stable, summer weather patterns are becoming more frequent. The spring tunas have arrived 40 miles off the beach in the bluewater, along with more Sargasso grass, gaffer dolphin, and blue marlin.

Due to the dynamics of the Gulf Stream and ever-changing weather and water-temperature patterns, “where-to-go” can change daily. What is a constant is “how-to” catch the fish that inhabit the waters offshore of Cape Lookout — yellowfin and blackfin tuna, dolphin, wahoo and billfish.

Learning to identify areas that consistently produce good fishing and having the ability to capitalize on productive conditions and avoid unproductive ones are skills that any fisherman can and needs to acquire.

If the yellowfins make a good showing in April and groups of fish remain off Morehead into May, almost all charterboat captains and mates will fish medium ballyhoos skirted with sea witches, on a spread of anywhere from eight to a dozen 50-pound class trolling outfits.

Some captains will fish as many as five rods from the bridge, while their mates in the cockpit are fishing six. The captain’s five may include their long-riggers and short-riggers, while the mate fishes six baits closer to the boat. Small boaters lack the luxury of fishing as many baits because they cannot spread the baits out. A small boater can overcome that disadvantage by making sure that every bait in the spread is swimming properly, so that when the boat passes over a hungry school of fish, all baits get quality bites.

Capt. Tony Ross of the Wet-N-Wild, which is docked at the Capt. Stacy Fishing Center on the Atlantic Beach causeway, takes a creative approach to tuna fishing. He fishes as many as five rods from the bridge — two long-riggers, one long shotgun and two spreader bars on bent-butt rods.

“Spreader bars can be very effective when targeting yellowfin tuna, as they mimic schools of squid swimming along the surface,” said Ross (252-504-3862). “Spreader bars can either be fished as teasers or on straight- or bent-butt rods with a hooked trailer bait such as a Moldcraft Squid or Green Machine.”

Perhaps the most important aspect of fishing spreader bars is where they are located in the spread. If they are fished closer to the boat, they can be especially effective in creating more bites on flat-line and short-rigger ballyhoos.

“I usually fish naked, split-billed ballyhoos on flat-lines with the spreader bars just behind them,” Ross said. “When I get a good mark on the (depthfinder) and the tuna are actively feeding, I can often get multiple bites on all of my closest baits. Utilizing tools such as spreader bars and squid chains can be an effective way to maximize your bites when the situation arises.”

Most captains fish with wind-on leaders consisting of long shots of 80- to 130-pound monofilament or fluorocarbon, depending on water color and clarity. The leaders are connected to the main line using a crimped loop or knot on the main-line side of the swivel and a crimped loop on the leader side of the swivel. A variety of swivels do the job; however, a 90-pound Sampo ball-bearing barrel swivel is the best choice if your rods have larger guides that will allow the loops of swivel to pass smoothly. The primary advantage to this swivel is its ability to prevent line twist. It is the most forgiving if your bait is improperly rigged and spins. The best rule of thumb is to rig your bait properly so that it will not spin; however, rough sea conditions can sometimes cause an improperly rigged bait to turn over.

If conditions are not favorable for yellowfins, many charter fishermen will focus their efforts on the gaffer dolphin that begin showing up in May. When dolphin are really thick, it’s not uncommon to top your fish box off with 40, 50, or even a 60-fish limit of these 8- to 50-pound fish. In May, you won’t see the small “bailer” dolphin more common during the peak of the summer.

Gaffer dolphin tend to migrate through during the late spring and early summer and then head northward, with the bailers taking over as residents of the grasslines and patches of scattered grass.

Targeting spring gaffer dolphin can be done is several ways, and several schools of thought exist as to the most-effective way to catch them. Like many captains and mates who rely heavily on big dolphin to fill their fish boxes, Capt. Dale Britt and mate Alan Scibal of the Sensation, which docks at Big Rock Landing on the Morehead City waterfront, like to fish “charterboat-style” for gaffers. They primarily fish 30-and 50-pound class trolling outfits equipped with wind-on or traditional mono leaders rigged with medium ballyhoo/sea witch combos or small Islander-style lures such as the Sailure, Tracker, or Outrider models.

Good colors for dolphin baits include anything blue and white — which resembles a flying fish — or any bright colors such as pink, chartreuse, green and yellow. Traditional tuna and wahoo colors combos that imitate bonitos such as blue/black, purple/black, or red/black seem to work as well, although to a lesser degree.

“When smaller billfish such as white marlin and sailfish are around, I will slide a couple of Shimano TLD 25s out on the flat lines with naked or skirted dink baits,” Scibal said. “The TLDs have an excellent free-spool that allows an easy dropback to billfish, and positioning dink baits on the flat lines allows them to be dropped back to fish that are either lingering in the spread or have wiped out another bait and not been hooked. It allows them to be quickly unclipped and ‘pitched’ or moved into position to hook a fish on the teaser, which is where small billfish and gaffer dolphin often first appear in the spread.”

Fishing an entire spread of outfits comparable to TLD 20s or 25s is another way to fish for dolphin if you are feeling a little more sporty and are less concerned about putting large quantities of meat in the box. This style of light-tackle fishing is referred to as “dink” fishing; it was first pioneered by Chip Shaffer, a legendary Oregon Inlet captain who runs the Temptress, and further tweaked by captains like John Bayliss and Arch Brasher, as well as many Florida sailfishing captains.

The advantage of dink-style fishing is that it allows an angler to easily hook a gaffer dolphin or small billfish when the angler is required to almost drop the bait into the fish’s mouth to secure a hookup. Squid chain or “Hawaiian Eye” chain teasers are an important component of this fishing style when targeting gaffer dolphin. The gaffers will usually appear behind the chains, and anglers can switch them off by pulling the teasers away from the fish while dropping back a dink bait for them to choke on.

Most setups include an 18- to 24-foot wind-on leader of 80-pound test secured to a short shot of double line formed by a Bimini twist or Spider Hitch. At the end of the leader is a an 80- to 100-pound snap swivel, to which is attached a 6-foot shot of 80-pound mono and a dink-style hook like a Mustad Model 9175D in 7/0. At $15 for 100, these are excellent hooks for catching gaffer dolphin, and considering the price, are basically throwaways, so you don’t worry about unhooking a fish, especially after it has swallowed a bait and been hooked in the gut. Rig the dink hook with a medium, medium-small, or small ballyhoo. The best baits are the smaller baits found in packs of medium ballyhoo. The best way to learn to rig one correctly is to have someone show you. Then, you can learn little tricks and changes to the rig such as adding a small chin weight that will help your bait perform better in any sea condition and position in the spread.