Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I launched near Mathews early Saturday morning and should have turned around right away. The forecasted 7kt North wind was coming straight from the South at 13kt and the water was nasty.

But instead I made a slow run down to a grass flat first, to see if I could find a trout or two, but it was just too windy and after about an hour of throwing a topwater I gave up and headed back to the ramp at a crawl.

Later in the day the wind died down a little so I decided to launch again and head to a shoal near the lighthouse to try chumming for cobia. It was still too rough for my little 16ft boat but I wasn't going to let $40 worth of bait go to waste so I anchored up and started chumming. My eels had all died overnight so I casted fishbites on a bottom rig and caught some kingfish and spot to use for bait.

Long story short...sharks. I caught a bunch of small sandbars from 18-36" and also reeled up a bunch of decapitated baits. The sharks were so thick I even caught one on a fishbite. This is the only one I brought in the boat.


After about 2 hours the wind was getting worse and had changed directions, so I threw in the towel and made the 4 mile run back to the ramp at 6mph, straight into the wind and waves. I was soaked from head to toe when I finally hit the dock.

Saturday night I went crabbing by the launch ramp. Caught 7 or 8 nice jimmies and a gazillion throwbacks. Tons of crabs out right now. I also tossed out a line with some fishbites and caught a couple croaker.

Sunday morning went about the same as Saturday. I threw topwaters over the grass for a little while and had no luck, then went out to try chumming again. Caught a bunch of kings, a couple spot, and more sharks.



I was reeling up a kingfish when I saw a brown shape following it up, thought shark at first but it was actually a small cobia of about 24". It hovered right by the boat so I picked up my sight casting rod with a Savage Gear Eel and dropped it in front of the fish. It charged twice and then the third time it ate the lure. Went ballistic and got off after about 5 seconds of thrashing. That was my excitement for the day. Pretty soon the wind picked up out of the East so I pulled anchor and headed in about 10am.

I enjoyed myself but I also learned that if I want to seriously target fish in the open water, I'm going to need a more sea worthy boat!