12/02/2008
Greetings from the Cape Fear Coast
I have been doing some prefishing for the 1st Annual Cape Fear Striped Bass Tournament. The last few trips have produce some decent fish. Today was my first solo trip and managed to catch four. Three of them were 18-20" fish but this one was a nice 33" (compressed tail) and weight in at 15lbs. The day started out in the 40's and raining. Still nicer than the 30mph winds of yesterday. Around 9:30 the rain stopped and the bite began. The first fish was small and was lying in a small pocket along the bank . It thumped a broke back Mirrolure.
The sky began to clear and I continued to cast several different baits at pockets and at structure along the river. I kept working along and could not get another solid bite. So I decided to do some trolling. As I went along a extended point the bank side rod bent to the gunwale. "Ding-dang", I thought as I saw my line wrapped around that extended point. I quickly sprang into action thinking that there was another lost crank bait to the submerged cypress of the Cape Fear. Clearing the other trolling plug and starting to back up I noticed the line had some how moved about ten feet off the bank. As I put rod to hand that cypress snag had a solid head shake and felt rather hefty. I did not want to horse this one after talking to a friend of mine who in a similar situation a few years ago boated a 45-50 pound fish from the Cape Fear River. After a five minute battle on ten pound mono, I boated the 15 pounder. This is only my third fish over 30". The next two fish hit while cruising over some five foot flats. Although not great sized fish, Striped Bass none the less.
When these fish hit, they smack it like there is no tomorrow and all though the battles do not last to long most of the time I was easy on big girl today knowing she hit on the only rod with mono.
Booking trips for mid-December and January Striped Bass Trips now.
Keep Chasing Trophies,
Capt. Danny Wrenn
96 Charter Company
Wilmington, N.C.
910.619.2224
