My first Chopper...Sea View 5/29

[sundrop]

Decided to give Sea View pier in Topsail a try since I hear Bogue Pier has been awful crowded. I went by myself and got there about 10:30 this morning (as it is now Midnite and I just got home) hoping to find a good spot and catch the inbound tide at 1pm. I settled in just before the breakers armed to the teeth with fresh shrimp,bloodworms, frozen finger mullet,fishbites in bloodworm and cutbait,Gotcha plugs and Diamond jigs.
Claimed my spot ( not a big crowd today) and decided to walk on out with the jig. Spotty Spanish being caught small to average size. Lots of Kingfishers but no Kings.
After an hour of jigging I decided I didnt want to work that hard so I rigged up to Bluefish/Flounder bottom rigs and baited my smaller rod with shrimp and the larger with frozen finger mullet. Fed a few babies,caught 2 spots, on the shrimp and as I was switching from shrimp to sandcrabs my big rod took off!! Set the hook in my first "Chopper Blue"!!! At first I thought it was a shark but when it tailwalked across a wave I knew it wasn't. Good fighting fish! It tailwalked 3 times pulling drag on my 30lb test Shakespere spincast but I got it turned around and started thinking about that pier gaff I havent bought yet! No one was around so I started working it towards the beach once I took some "green" off of it.
Nice older man saw me when he was coming out of the pierhouse and rushed his cart over and dropped me a net! I was happy to see him for sure! Put it on ice and went back to fishing. Caught 6 flounder all 13-13.5 inches so i had to let em go, several whiting,croakers ( most of which I gave to the man that had helped me since I noticed he was keeping anything you could eat legally).
I had another hook up and run but it snapped one of the swivels open on my bottom rig!felt as good as the Chopper did. Caught a dozen or more Tailor blues all on mullet.
Hard as I tried on my light rig no Pompano. Didn't get a hit on my jig or Gotchas all day, but I wasn't alone. Water was nice and wind wasn't bad. I'm actually surprised the fishing wasnt better overall for everyone. A few guys were jigging for Specks to no avail. All in All and great day and I had a blast! When I left about 9:20 several people mid pier were catching whiting and spots here and there..
Just a note... the guys in the pierhouse where very friendly and willing to guide me with any questions I had. One even brought me a FREE bag of sandfleas and said no one had bought any today so far, and he just KNEW there had to be some Pompano in the water as nice as it was...for me to give it a shot.
I will definately go back possibly this week if my back can take it.
Now I need to give Surf City a try too!!
Oh almost forgot!!! I brke in my new NC Angler hat today as well so it must be good luck!!! *PICS TO FOLLOW* I'm sleepy.....