The Atlantic Bonita is one of my favorite fish. Not because it's a good fighter for its size, nor because it is one of the first pelagic fish to visit our shore in the spring, nor because it comes close to the beach and is easy to reach in my small boat. But rather for all of those reasons and besides its pretty tasty too!
Bonita visit structure within a few miles of our shoreline every spring on their migration path. They almost always arrive off Topsail by Tax day, April 15th. Normally they get here before the Spanish Mackerel with the short stay (about 3 weeks) overlapping the arrival of the Spaniards. They really get my fishing juices stirred up as they are the first near shore fish I pursue in the spring (don't care much for mullet fishing).
This year was no exception. They showed up near the New River Inlet on April 15th but there was only one or two days that the weather allowed for boats to get out till now. Today was my first opportunity to chase them. TimC went with me, we went through the inlet a little before 7am an d began looking for the birds that often give away the location of the Bonita school. we found a few and saw a couple of boats working the area but had no luck trolling so we continued on out for some structure in the Diver's rock area.
Bingo, we got our first fish on and it tuned out to be a nice sized Bonita. In fact this would be Tim's first ever Atlantic Bonito and the only one we caught today. We did manage a half dozen or so bluefish with the largest being about 2 pounds. It was a bit rough and the bite was shut-off so we headed back for the inlet around 11. But mission accomplished, we got the ole fishing juices primed and ready for the season!
