This Fall at Cape Lookout has been one of the best fishing experiences of my life! I put over 220 hours on the Retriever’s motor in less than 3 months! I won’t bore you with the details of the 40 or so sea adventures I took this fall. But one adventure, in particular, stood out. After catching a few false albacore (“albies”) on my flyrod at first light, I then motored over to an area that previously held Big Red Drum. There were only four other boats when I first arrived (which eventually expanded to 16) and the game was on! Everyone seemed to be hooked up with a big drum except for moi! But persistence paid off and I eventually scored a 46″ Big Drum. Then an even cooler thing happened. A humpback whale decided to join the party and began feasting on menhaden for over 2 hours. It meandered throughout the fleet (including fishing guide Brian Horsley’s boat shown in the photo above) and then emerged less than 40′ from the Retriever! After the drum bite slowed and the humpback whale disappeared, I headed back to Beaufort. Halfway home, a school of albies started busting the ocean surface so, naturally, I cast a fly into that mayhem and hooked and boated an albie! Once I arrived home, I recounted my sea adventure with Stephanie over a tumbler of Buffalo Trace: busting albies, jumping dolphin, feasting humpback, voracious bluefish, and a stunning environment. As a marine biologist and avid fisherman, it simply doesn’t get any better!
