[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.....

 

[Coach D]

Ok. Maybe I just got a bad hat. Might need to buy another.

 

[LiveBait]

All in all, sounds like a great day! I can't wait to see that chopper!

Thanks for the report.

Mark

 

[sundrop]

Heres my Chopper after being iced overnight... Digital pier scale said 8.6 lbs. after being on ice several hours. I wasn't going to stop fishing to go weigh it alive!

 

[Jeffonc]

Swee-ee-ee-eet! Gotta love it when a fish needs to be folded to fit in the cooler and looks like it could easily eat the rest of the catch.

Nice work sundrop.

 

[sinker man]

OK, now that you that you got the catching part down; lets work on the turning it into food part. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an expert but this is how I learned to do it and I liked the results. When you first catch a big blue go ahead and get any picture taking and weighing done because the next step is to bleed him. I cut their tails down to the bone on each side and ice them down in about 3 parts ice to one of seawater. Once you have him filleted cut away the red meat. Now you have a much improved pair of fillets.

 

[Dave B.]

Good work Sundrop!

 

[backlash]

Awesome Sundrop, I'll bet that was a good tug on the line. I've always caught smaller ones on gotchas and light equipment and I'm always amazed at how hard they go after it.

 

[sundrop]

thanks for the tips. I did a search online to see if there were anything special about Blue meat and found I did need to bleed it out or clean it fresh. I filleted it today and cut out the red meat as much as I could and it is in brine water soaking in the fridge. I'll cut it into chunks and batter and fry this time. I may not like the taste because I like a clean white meat fish, but my wife loves trout,herring and shad so she will probably love it.
I know I loved catching it, and I can't wait to get out there again with some fishfinder rigs and live bait!
Now I've got to work on my flounder and Pompano fishing too...

 

[LiveBait]

Man those things are fun to catch! Glad you got into them sundrop.

 

[Jollyrob]

Awsome, and congrats on your first chopper!! They are a blast to catch, last week they were in thick at the JR and my sister and I caught quite a few on plugs and 8lb test; what a blast!! As for the eating part, wellllll I don't really care for them (I like the whiter fish) and normally give them away or release them, but some people really like them.

Fishing has been pretty good at the Jolly Roger, they are catching blues and spanish in the mornings and afternoons as well as a few black and puppy drum, mullet, flounder, and pompano. They also landed a 35lb cobia yesterday afternoon.

jollyrob

 

[sinker man]

We used to catch way too many in the 10-18lb range back late 70's early 80's. It seemed like they were going to eat everything in the ocean. We would freeze whole fillets from a few now and then and thaw them in the sink with water and the juice from an orange (to help get the oil out) before grilling them. They were pretty good that way. Sure saved my fishing partner a lot of grocery money. He had 2 growing boys and a wife that were always happy on the 2 days a week that he grilled a fillet for supper.

 

[Strykerfive]

Some great information and fun reading here. Thanks. Havn't caught a chopper blue myself so I will be trying soon. Congrats and thanks for the tips yall.

 

[FishinTopsail]

Nice report Sundrop! Thanks for posting. I have family in the hospital, hope I can get out soon.

 

[sundrop]

Nice report Sundrop! Thanks for posting. I have family in the hospital, hope I can get out soon.

Sorry to hear of the family woes... I hope thigs turn for the better and you make it to the water soon!