I wanted to take my second fish rigged 2012 Yamaha FXHO (my wife's) on it maiden trip this weekend. So why not chance it and take it offshore the first time!
Todd met me at my house on friday after work and we loaded up my ski on his double trailer. After we took our wives out to dinner we hit the road and got to Hatteras North Carolina after midnight. We got a room at the Breakwater Inn and managed a couple hours of sleep before getting up at 0430.
There was a good crowd of boats putting in at Teach's Lair but not crazy. The weather was an 11 on a scale of 10, near flat seas, 5 mph to zero winds and sunny skies with temps in the mid 70's. This allowed us to run at speeds up to 50 mph all day long.
Being that I had zero hours or minutes on the new ski, I did not want to go too far out. We opted for a couple of wrecks about 20 miles offshore to try for some Amberjacks and bottom fishing. We were not let down jigging up several nice jacks. We also caught several Sea Bass and some Triggerfish. The Jacks were pretty thick and relentless, several times they went for the sea bass as we were reeling them in. Had a couple of buddies from Poquoson show up and get into some jigging, they had just came from the Rockpile and caught some nice Mahi.
We left the wreck around 1230 to go back inshore and look for some cobia. Saw a couple cobia under sea turtles and on the surface but they were small and not willing to bite. I did see one nice cobia being caught in the shoals around the point late in the afternoon.
It was a phenomenal first trip, I covered almost ninety miles and burned about 16 gallons putting the first five hours on the engine. Everything ran and operated well. We were on the water 9 hours. Made it back to Poquoson at 9pm last night after the 3 1/2 drive.
Here are some pictures I took while out.