King fishing off Topsail

[Topsail Angler]

Went out yesterday morning with the plan to fish the "beach" for a few hours then move further out if the bite was slow. Fished the ledges 2-3 miles off Surf City, had 2 hook-ups, got one in the boat, the other pulled the hook on the first run. Both were on the down rigger line at about 30' on a pink and silver mylar skirt.

We then moved out and fished some ledges 8-10 miles out, nothing but a 30" shark. Moved south a bit, still 10 miles out, had another hook-up and boated another king off the down rigger line, this time on a blue and white skirt at about 35'. We moved a few miles further out, no luck.

Both kings were in the low teens. That was it for fish. We did chase a school of Spanish on the way back but no takers.

The Navy had 6 ships just off our coast, maybe 15-20 miles out. I was fishing with several other boats. We noticed several times our GPS units reported "satellite signals lost". Never had that happen before. Then after a few minutes, the signal would come back. Also the Navy was all over channel 70 but seemed to be in low power mode as you couldn't hear them 10 miles away. We had some radio reception problems that came and went. This was reported by at least three other boats I was fishing with. Maybe just a coincidence, but seems odd. Makes one wonder if some electronic signal jamming was going on or something.