Gagilicious Day off of Topsail Island

We had been planning a big day on the water for Thursday since the beginning of the week with several boats and lots of fisherman because the long range weather forecast was finally favorable for the North Carolina coast. Of course Wednesday the forecast was changed to predicting nastiness and then current conditions were not pretty on the high seas so we scrapped our fishing plans. However, at about 8:30 Thursday morning Tanner Gray and I both checked the weather and found it to be do-able and we planned to hit the water last minute. I called Taylor Perdue knowing that he could go fishing at the drop of a hat (retired and loving it) and told him to grab his new rod and meet the Reel Dream Team at the ramp.

We were on the water by 10:00 and the fog was rolling in; a strange occurrence mid-morning for Topsail Island. We made it out through the inlet without incident, punched some numbers into the GPS for a secret Grouper hole about 18 miles offshore, and headed off into big 5 foot rollers. The further offshore we got, the steeper the rollers got, to the point where they weren’t rollers because we kept falling off the backside of these big waves when we got going to fast. We adjusted our speed and made for a comfortable, easy going ride to the fishing grounds. Just before we reached our honey hole we entered a thick fog bank and found the seas to be a washing machine with waves from several directions and the swell from yet another. It was a really strange feeling.

I found the ledge on the sonar, bait on the ledge, figured out our drift course in the jumbled seas, and told the guys to drop lines to see if anything was down there before we went through the effort of dropping the anchor. Tanner’s bait may been on the bottom for a couple of seconds before his rod bent over double and up came a nice Gag Grouper.

I positioned the boat where it needed to be; we dropped the hook, and went to fishing while trying to keep our footing in the disorderly seas.

This year I feel pretty confident in saying that I mastered the Grouper Groove, having caught most or all of the Grouper for the boat on numerous fishing trips all year long and developing a pretty good reputation along the way. This day it was going to be my “students” (as I jokingly call them because they are both excellent fishermen in their own rights) day to wear out the fish and show me up.

Tanner was definitely in the groove, landing 5 of our keepers. We caught all types of fish; sharks, pinkies, undersized Groupers, grunts, ringtails, and Tanner even managed a gorgeous Octopus.

OCTOPUS

TANNER'S NICE GAG

At some point during our catching, the day turned beautiful with the sun burning off the fog and the seas laying down. I moved us to Secret Grouper Hole number 2 when the bite turned off of hole number 1 and we filled out our limit of Gag Grouper with Taylor catching his biggest Gag Grouper to date on his new Penn Torque fishing reel and Shimano Trevela rod.

TAYLOR'S BIG GAG

It ended up being a tremendous day; beautiful weather, a box FULL of Gag Grouper, new fishing rods properly broken in, and happy fishermen. Best of all, my crew did most of the hard labor of reeling in the fish…Great Job Guys!

TAYLOR ENJOYING THE RIDE DOWN THE TOPSAIL SOUND

TANNER LOOKING SATISIFIED WITH A DAY IN THE GROOVE

CAPTAIN SCOTT ERICKSON

MY FAVORITE VIEW OFF THE BOAT...

BUCKETS OF FISH

RESULTS THAT COUNT

Go Catch Some,
Captain Scott Erickson