anyone else planning on running out of OI Friday? Give me a call 804-467-6770. I would like to buddy up if I can. John

John,
I'll be down that way, but we're heading down to Hatteras Thrusday night. Hope you guys get into them!! Have a great trip and catch 'em Up!

--Don

Go get them dudes. Gosh, I wish I was going with you. Hatteras is as hot as Hades. Big bluefins,limits of Yellowfins, Wahoos and yesterday another Blue Marlin. They are hamering them down there. Forecast 3 to 5 for 7 days straight.
We are going weekend of 21/22/23. I can't wait to get back in the fray.

I'll be fishing out of Hatteras on Saturday.

Godd luck to all!!

Don, I'll call your cell on Friday.

I will be back down there toward the End of the Month.

I've got a little work going on with my boat, but I'm with Brynner Parks on the Smoker chartered out of OI on Friday. SW to W back to SW winds, 4 ft. seas, 65 degrees air. I am PUMPED.

cool- sounds like it may be worth a trip down a little further south. What time does everyone leave from hatteras in the morning? I have never gone out of that inlet - if its anything like OI - i think i would like to follow out teh charters - just to be safe. Let me know -see you guys down there. John

They all leave when there is light enough to see the channel. I would say between 5:30 and 6:00 am. The channel is as crooked as a snake, but is not particularly difficult. One thing I would caution you on -- that inlet is nothing to be fooled with on a stiff southwest blow, which is the predominate wind direction. Especially on an outgoing tide. The inlet will develop breaking surf, as it is only about 20' deep and it will stand-up and back-flip a sizable boat going to sea and easily broach one that is returning. It has happened many times down there. There is a red and white sea-buoy outside the inlet - it is the "safe-water buoy" - the water is about 60' deep there and although there can be big swells there, ithey don't break, therefore you are generally ok upon reaching it.
One other piece of advice (none of which you asked for, but I'll give you anyway) -- is resist the temptation to cut across Diamond Shoals. No one, and I really mean NO ONE, knows the depths on the Shoal because it changes all of the time. There are numerous wrecks on the Shoal which are exposed by the swirling current, some of which can be only a few feet below the surface, even several miles off of the beach.
A lot of people (including myself) have had problems at Hatteras, because after driving all that way down there and seeing great fishing reports -- they get impatient and are determined to go outside in-spite of a blow, thinking it will "just be rough and we'll deal with it." What is different there, as opposed to here, is the presence of the Gulf Stream and the immense weather impact the Steam has. We are not used to it up here. What is a rough and uncortfortable day up here, can be really dangerous down there. In my years of fishing down there, I have been blown out at least 50% of the time - if not more. There is no shame in sitting on the dock down there. Trying to get back through the inlet after the wind has come up, in a small boat, on a rough day, will cure you of any thoughts of Atheism.Just some thoughts.

Excellant Advise....After our weekend down there two weekends ago I can atest to how quickly conditions can worsen there. We were getting right with god on our way back in on Saturday. Sunday the wind wasn't as bad but it was a SW wind and it stood my 28'6 southport up pretty good in the inlet. There was a 24 footer in front of me who I was really concerned for. They all had life jackets on going out the inlet. That was on an outgoing tide. The return trip through the inlet was a piece of cake though on an incoming tide....Bob

We have canceled the trip for this weekend the weather is still a little Iffy.

Think I am going to start the boat in the driveway, put it at a trolling idle (just enough to hear the engine run).
Tie a line off of one of my rods to my 110lbs dog and have him run around the yard ( so I can hear some drag ripping).

MAN I NEED SOME PULLAGE

Wounder what the neighbors would say


BOB,
When are we going out of Rudy??

Depending on weather and warm water eddies....next weekend....see if we can find a break or some Blue Fin action.....Bob

Todd,
Sorry you guys aren;t going...I haven't checked the weather yet...but if all else fails..we'll be drinking and playing cards waiting for the Bunnies to show up!!!

Bob on Still Thinkn, Mega Bite and anybody else who it might help:

Here is something that I use -- which I find to be very helpful and you may find helpful, if you are going to try an early-season offshore trip out of Va. Beach.

Go to Offshoresatelliteservices.com.

It is a private tempature mapping service. It is far more sophisticated that the public stuff we generally look at on the Web. They have devised software to extrapolate a much higher resolution on the temp measuring points. I subscribe to it, but every year until about mid-May, it is open to the public for free. The user password is OSS. I am not telling you a secret --they want people to try the service and open this password to the public in the winter so people can see how it works. Capt Len, a charter skipper in NJ who runs the service, is currently running plots (latest was 4/11/06) measuring and observing the warm-core eddie action you and Mega Bite are watching. Additionaly, there is a mechanism on the site to measure the exact distance to any location offshore (for example the Canyon, the Fingers or a random tempature break like this one, etc.) from any point on shore (Rudee or Cape Henry, for example). You can print the chart, take it with you, store the lat/lon of the temp break you are looking at in your GPS as way point and run straight to it -- saving some time and hopefully some of this very expensive fuel. The break you are looking at is east-south-east of the Triple 0's and today is close to 80 nm offshore. Just thought you and others might be interested in this approach. Kent.

Good info there........We made that run yesterday to check out the break and didnt have a bite. From the slip we ran 177NM roundtrip. Water was up to 66 in 500fath, and broke down to 52 inside of the 100fath. Saw only 1 other boat in the area, he picked up 1 30lb bluefin. Ended up deep dropping for sea bass to save the day...........


JOE

That's a trip! Thanks for the first hand recon!!

Kent,

I went to the site but I don't know the username? Looks like a cool site!!

Let me know.

-Mike

I might have asked you this before, but what size tank you got in the Albie?

I actually use oceantemp.com ...they're pretty good..unlimited downloads of their charts......Bob

Mike....user name for OSS is ....OSS, password OSS......Bob

Mike, Bob is right -- User Name =OSS Password= OSS


Kent

Peej, hold 140 gallons. Filled up yesterday before heading out for some wreck fishing and had only burnt 87 gallons for 177NMmiles, not too bad



JOE

Thats 2.03448275862069 miles a gallon

What year boat, engine? Carb or EFI?



I will one day get mine figured out.

I have the Navman 2100, but have yet to dial it all in.

Eric

1987 hull, repowered in 03' with the 5.7 Volvo duoprop setup, with SS props. Up to 230 hours on her now, and need to pull it out and clean the hull, as it has been in the slip for 3 months now...........Only cruising at 24-25 kts @ 3400RPM. That seems to be the best RPM as far as fuel consumption goes...I dont have a flo scan, but have never burnt more than 90 gal in a day.

Tight lines


JOE