Offshore adventure on the Carolina Princess

Went out on the "Carolina Princess" last week. She's a 95 foot Open
Party Boat out of Morehead City. She primarily does bottom fishing over
Gulf Stream wrecks most of the time but runs tuna/wahoo/dolphin trolling
trips in the spring and fall. Also does giant bluefin fishing in the
winter for the big ones.

Our trip was a 14 hour tuna/wahoo/dolphin trip - her first of the fall
season. The load is limited to 12 but we only had 10 anglers. Two of
my neighbors/friends went along with me. I ran into an old fishing buddy
from Montauk after we boarded.
The rest of the passengers were a really great bunch of guys as well.

Had an easy 3 hour run out to the Gulf Stream - 50 miles south/southeast
of Morehead. Not the shortest distance to the stream but supposedly an
area where there had been a hot bite reported over the weekend.

Their setup is an 8 rod spread. Two lines on each outrigger pulling
ballyhoo, two flat lines with 16 ounce trolling weights in front of more
ballyhoo, a "shotgun" fished off an "uprigger" WAY BACK with a bally,
and a large planer a short ways back with, your guessed it, a bally.

The first 5 fish taken were all on the planer. The first and smallest
of the lot was a 24 pound Wahoo. My two friends accounted for 2 of the
5 'hoos. One of the guys with me had never caught anything larger than
a 1 pound perch off our dock. Next fish was caught by my old friend
from Montauk on one of the outriggers - his first sailfish. He was
brought in, photographed and released. Another even bigger 'hoo was
our next victim. This one a 30 plus pounder on the shotgun. That
angler got his money's worth - best and longest battle of the trip.

I was next man in rotation and true to form got a double knockdown. I
worked what looked like the bigger fish and the mate brought in the
other. Mine was a 3 pound "chicken" dolphin while the other was his
little brother of maybe 2 pounds. Everyone else is catching 'hoos and
sails and I got to get the little Mahi - go figure. I took quite a
goodnatured verbal beating on the size of my "trophies" from my shipmates

Next man up got another Mahi - about 2 pounds. The last man in the
rotation got a 35 pound 'hoo on one of the flat lines.
My "rookie" neighbor started the next round and hooked and almost boated
his first dolphin - looked like a 6-8 pounder. It jumped and shook the
hook half way to the boat and was gone. The planer went off big time
while we were slowed for the fight with the Mahi and my buddy grabbed it
and had a serious battle with a good fish. I thought from watching the
fight that it was probably "Charlie" but it turned out to be a HUGE 'hoo
in the 40 pound class. This one couldn't lay flat in the fishbox - we
had to bend it to fit it in. Looked to me to have at least 300 teeth in
that long jaw - a real sea wolf. It was hooked in the very tip of its
jaw in some very hard cartlidge. No one volunteered to take the hook
out of this guy's mouth.

The weather had deteriorated by then to about a NE 25 mile an hour blow
with the seas up to 8 - 10 feet . Time to head in. It took us 3 and a
half hours to get back. The boat rode very well in the high waves and
only pounded a little once in a while.

They cleaned the catch (8 'hoos and 3 Mahi) back at the dock for free
and split the fish 10 ways - share and share alike (a good way to do it
in my opinion). Their fish cleaning operation was something to watch.
One guy finned, headed and gutted the 'hoos. The second guy held them
by the tail and swiped the other end repeatedly through a table band saw
cutting dozens of 3/4 inch steaks while the 3rd guy collected the
steaks, rinsed them and bagged them into ten equal portions. The heads,
guts, etc were thrown into the water behing the cleaning station where a
rather ferocious collection of scavengers put on quite a show of
fighting for the scraps. Looked like a school or Piranha but was
probably a mix of snappers, blues and pinfish. The heads made it to the
bottom where I understand there are some huge blue claw crabs that are
living large.

We left MHC at 7PM and were home before 9PM. I thought the trip was a
bargain at $150 fare + a tip for the mates. We had a great time and
each one of the anglers ended up with over 20 pounds of cleaned Wahoo
steaks and a couple of Mahi fillets. Hats off to first mate Rodney,
Cap'n Woo Woo and the rest of the crew and staff
..