Bluewater fishermen shout ‘wahoo!’ at prospects for early season action.
If the howl of the clicker on a large Penn International reel doesn’t jack your adrenaline, accelerate your heart rate and cause the little hairs on the back of your neck to stand up, this story probably isn’t for you.
The late winter/early spring offshore action off Cape Fear is tailor-made for fishermen who like long battles, fresh fish and don’t mind a bit of a boat ride to get there. Depending on the location of the Gulf Stream, which moves inshore and offshore as wind and weather conditions change, the ride from the mouth of the Cape Fear River to the waters where wahoo and blackfin tuna roam is approximately 55 to 65 miles.
Capt. Eugene Landis and Capt. Joe Seegars are part of the small group of dedicated anglers willing to make the long run from Southport to the fertile waters along the inshore edge of the Gulf Stream. With many years of experience, they usually return with a crew of smiling but tired, fishermen — and plenty of fresh wahoo and tuna for the dinner table.
Landis, who operates Bullfighter Sportfishing Charters, has more than a decade of experience plying the waters off Southport. He began in a smaller boat but now operates a 35-foot Bertram out of Southport Marina. During the late winter and early spring, he heads offshore until he finds a temperature change of several degrees where the water on the warm side is clean and 69 degrees or warmer. He said these early-spring temperature breaks may not have weed lines, but the water usually changes colors from green to blue, or there is a noticeable rip.
“I like to pull a 7-line spread most of the time,” Landis said. “However, there are times we may pull more or less. My 7-line spread begins with a shotgun line that is right down the middle and is the longest line on the boat. It’s well back, at least several hundred feet.
“My next two lines out are the outrigger lines,” Landis said. “I stagger them a bit and set them well behind the boat, but definitely short of the shotgun line. All of these are surface lines.
“Next, I set up two lines to run down in the water. These may use skirted baits behind planers or they may be Mann’s 30 Plus swimming lures that dive on their own. My last lines are a pair of flat lines running right across the transom. These lines will be staggered; one may be as short as a couple of boat lengths and the other may be up to 100 feet back. This spread covers five positions on the surface behind the boat and two below the surface.”
Landis uses mainly darker colors to attract wahoo; his favorite is red/black, but he also uses purple/black and red/white. He always has at least one blue/white skirt in the mix for the blackfins and other fish that like blue.
Landis uses ballyhoo, and when kept frozen until ready to fish and then brined properly, they will hold together at speeds up to about nine knots, which is creeping into the lower end of fast trolling speeds. Landis rigs the ballyhoo into Ilanders, sea witches and a variety of soft plastic skirts, and he also changes out for some cedar plugs as he begins increasing his speed.
“I don’t have a bunch of secrets,” Landis said. “I just tend to stick with traditional colors and lures that have produced well over the years. I’ve been around lots of folks that change colors a lot, but in the long run, they would have caught about the same number and size of fish without the changes.”
Seegars spent his time in college getting a degree but said he really had a problem daydreaming about offshore fishing. After leaving college, he spent eight years as a mate in Hatteras, most of it with Capt. Fred Parsons on the Citation. Then, a job opportunity brought him to Southport, and he began a second love affair with the waters off Cape Fear. Seegars doesn’t charter fish any longer, but most weekends there are loads of friends and relatives hoping to head offshore on the family boat, Hooked Up, a 40-foot Fitz Custom.
Seegars begins his fishing trips the night before, studying the satellite imagery of the area where he is heading. He said for late winter/early spring wahoo and blackfin tuna, he looks for the area with the warmest water and least current along the 30-fathom (180-foot) break.
“Once I’m at the area I’m going to fish, I move up and down the current break looking for something different,” Seegars said. “That can be a weedline, a hard rip, an upwelling or just about anything that shows something is happening in the water. Sometimes, I don’t find that right where I pinpointed the water, so I move off, looking for something that will attract and concentrate fish.”
Seegars said his time in Hatteras taught him to be a traditionalist when fishing for wahoo. He likes to fish ballyhoo rigged into sea witches on wire leaders. His favorite colors are red, blue, purple and black mixed with black — yes, he said black-on-black, so understand his preference for dark lures. However, he said he always pulls one bright color and one naked bait somewhere in his spread.
“For early blackfins, I often pull a Green Machine behind a squid chain,” Seegars said. “A lure that I love for this early fishing is a purple-and-black, with Mylar, Mini-Jag from Bluewater Candy. Everything wants to eat that lure rigged with a 12-pack ballyhoo.”
Seegars mixes his lures throughout his spread, and while most were on the surface, he always runs at least one below the surface.
“I’ve been fortunate and was able to live at Hatteras and get up every morning to do something I love,” Seegars said. “I still go back up there at any invitation, but I really believe the wahoo fishing off Cape Fear is as good, if not better, than it was at Hatteras.”
Landis and Seegars agree the wahoo fishing off Cape Fear is excellent in the late winter and early spring. While yellowfin tuna are a very infrequent addition to the catch, blackfins are a big part of most of them.
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