My favorite spec hole

[merlin]

You thought I was going to tell you where it is, didn't you...

Yesterday afternoon the weather did the opposite of what had been predicted, and my father-in-law and I snuck out to see what we could find. Slipped into our favorite trout hole in Bogue Sound (which hasn't produced a trout yet this year) and first cast he caught a 1# blue. 4-5 casts later he hooked something that immediately took off like it didn't even know it was hooked. Now, for whatever reason, my father-in-law has spooled his trout rod this year with 6 pound test. So with about 100 yards of line out without the thing even slowing down, I pulled up the anchor, started the engine, and began to move after it. What a ride. We chased him all over the sound, into and out of the ICW, moved between him and several docks and markers, and spent an hour chasing this fish. Several times he swirled near the surface, and once he even jumped but was so far off we never got a good look at him. We had speculated that he must be nearly every type of fish that swims before we got him up and close enough to see that he was a big blue.

By the time we netted him, we were a couple miles from where we started. Now, I have always heard that a big blue does not taste as good as the little ones, but I'm here to tell you that is not the case. We kept this fish for two reasons, one, we had never caught one that large before, and two, we suspected him of being at least partly responsible for the lack of trout in our favorite trout hole. Filleted and grilled with salt pepper lemon and white wine that fish tasted as good as any I have eaten.

Anyway that's my story. 30 " , 7# 70 degree day with a 15 mph east wind. Fish hit a tsunami swim bait in about 8' of water.