Friday morning Jim called me and told me to get ready for a possible trip in the afternoon, dependant on wind - or more accurately the abating of same. There was no decrease in velocity. The trip was rescheduled for Saturday morning.

It was 06:00 Teaches Lair when we bid ourselves a sleepy good morning and headed out towards the inlet with the promise of steadily decreasing winds from their current 10-15 from the SW. The heat of the morning made us hope the forcast was a bit wrong - no wind in this heat would quickly become rather uncomfortable.

We made it through a not so ugly inlet without incident and set out the spanish gear. The day before a good spanish bite had been reported in 25 feet of water East of Hatteras Village all the way down to the hook. The water was clear enough to see anything swimming near the surface so the two Cobia/plug/lure rigs were made ready.

I can tell you that spanish fishing was NOT red hot. In fact if it wasn't for the one we caught in the entire stretch between the inlet and the pier I'd have to say it was shut off. Still, not to be outdone by crappy fishing we sallied forth determined to fish, hoping to catch (which is pretty much what fishermen do, so we were in our element).

The boredom was tedious, but a break in the non-action came in the form of Jim uttering the word "Cobia!" while turning the boat back from whence we came nearly dislodging it's occpants from the craft. We all peered in the direction Jim indicated while he snatched his large plug rod and in a few moments two nice Cobia were seen headed at a good clip towards Hatteras Inlet.

I never saw two dumber fish in my life. I like dumb fish though - makes me look good.

Jim dropped the lure in front of their noses and they raced for it to see who could get there first. Naturaly the smaller one of the two got there first, so Jim tightened up on it and while I grabbed my plug rod Jim worked the fish back around and sure enough, the second fish was right there with the first one. I took the line from under the roller, tossed the big jig and paddle-tail in front of the larger fish and just about the time I got the line back under the roller on the Daiwa Emblem 4500 the rod bent over and the spool started singing. Sweet Music!

It was then the enormity of our crime was realized. We had two cobia on and 4 spanish planers out so rolling down that track like an out of control freight train directly towards our stalled car on the crossing was a disaster of epic standards just waiting to happen.

Jim shoved the rod in Sharin's hands and requested she hold on while scrambling to retrieve our previously useless spanish gear. While this was going on he told us if he had to he'd just cut it all lose 'cause two nice cobia outweigh one dried up spanish in the box. Sounded like a good plan to me, but these two dumb fish happily towed the boat towards Hatteas Inlet while Jim clearned the lines still being pulled along and it wasn't long before we had a clear deck.

Did I mention we didn't have a gaff?

Through an interesting turn of events the boat gaff was left in the truck that had gone to the beach the previous afternoon while the wind blew. Well.... it's a good thing Jim has such a good angler on board. This might be tricky, but it's sho-nuff gonna be fun!

Sharin played her fish out pretty soon and worked it up close to the boat. Jim leaned over and in two grabs had the fish by the throat and was working on subduing it while it flailed around in the boat. The trusty baseball bat, which fortunately had not been taken the beach, was employed with the skill of an axe murderer and one recently deceased dumb cobia was keeping company with a rather peckish looking spanish mackerel in the fish box.

My fish was determined to make it to Hatteras Inlet so it was necessary for me to change his mind and test my knots. In doing so I was able to burn the fish out and when it rolled up near the boat the third time Jim hauled him over the rail, dispached it and put it too in the box without much further ado.

Excellent. My freezer is healed!

While we caught our breath we continued on towards the point only because that seemed to be the general direction we were headed in. Sea Bear and Harpers Folly had been working down closer to the point and picking up some spanish, the water was still clear enough, so it thought it might be a good idea to head on and see if another couple of browns could be spied and inticed into eating something that looks nothing like food.

We never saw another cobia, but we did manage to pick up a few more spanish mackerel and one juvenile king on the clark spoons. There seemed to be plenty of mackerel around as we could see them jumping, but we couldn't get very many of them to bite.

To our increasing dismay, the weather report was spot on and by the time we trolled our way back to Hatteras Inlet it was still and hot. Too Hot! We couldn't however pass up the chance to beat off black flies and catch a good number of short flounder on the back side of the spit. Sharin was rewarded with the only keeper flounder of the day and she also got two of the bait stealers that were giving us such a hard time.

As we came back in the marina we commented on what a good day it had been, even through all the diversity. Can't wait to do it again.