Trip to the Rockpile and Back: A Half Day of Good Fishing. Another Species Caught

By Jim Field

During our Hatteras vacation, on Saturday, August 7 to be exact, the last day of Dan's vacation in Hatteras, Dan and I headed out for a morning of fishing, the requirement being that we make it back to the dock (i.e., our families) by noon. We met at the boat at 6:00 am, and made the decision that Andrew should stay in bed, and not accompany us, because the seas were likely to be rough. The Diamond Shoals buoy was reporting (realtime) 4 foot seas at 4 seconds apart, which does not suggest an easy day. Conversely, the forecast for the day was far rosier, promising 2-4 foot waves 11 seconds apart--a walk in the park. Given this discordance, we chose the careful route to not expose Andrew to the real possibility of a difficult half day. (Alas, for Andrew, many more fishing days ahead for this young man.)

After throwing off the ropes and transiting to Hatteras Inlet, we encountered huge incoming swells, one of which brought most of the Sea Ya Bea out of the water. Along with other charter boats navigating the channel, we reduced speed in order to more easily accommodate the large, closely-grouped swells. Upon clearing the channel buoys, we set course for a point SW of the Rockpile, 20 miles distant, and set engine RPMs to make roughly 19 knots SOG. Notably--and fortunately--Dan went below into the cabin to better secure things and found that 3 pound lead weights had been jettisoned from their container when we "caught air," and were rolling around freely--like miniature loose cannons--to wreak havoc on the woodwork. Caught in time, we found no damage done.

The conditions got better as the morning progressed: the skies going from dark gray to patches of blue sky, the seas flattening out. Winds diminished to 10-15 knots. We shut down near the Rockpile and deployed our baits. Over the course of a few hours--on what turned out to be a relatively slow bite for everyone else--we caught a "very nice" wahoo, had another wahoo bite off perhaps 5 yards beyond the transom, 2 sizable mahi-mahis, and released a barracuda--the first one landed on the Sea Ya Bea (add it to the list). Dan and I were both surprised by the barracuda's canine-like teeth--sizable individual choppers spaced apart from one another.

Reluctantly, we curtailed fishing operations in the middle of a beautiful day in waters with all the right conditions: dark blue color, 82-85 degree temperature, with bait being marked all over the place. In fact, we had come across a weed line that went on for as long as we could see from the tuna tower, which we could have followed and surely harvested mahi all afternoon long. That said, we secured fishing operations and moored around 1:00 pm, with Dan hurrying home to wife and kids, thus successfully pulling off a memorable day of fishing combined with family time on their last full day in the Village. Pretty sweet.


Dan and the wahoo: great photo on a memorable day, with fantastic eating to follow


Profile of a beautiful and menacing barracuda

The teeth on these beasts (not our photo)