Friday morning I was lucky enough to get an invitation to go fishing with my friend and colleague, Ed.
While we live on the White Oak River which is the big body of water behind Cedar Point in this map, Ed lives right on the Intracoastal Waterway.
It is a straight shot from his house out the channel to Bogue Inlet where I snapped this sunrise picture.
We left Ed's dock at almost exactly 6:30 am and were fishing withing ten minutes. We were meat fishing since I had asked for some trolling lessons using planers and Clark spoons.
Our goal was to catch some Spanish Mackerel and be back at the dock before 8:30 am so Ed could make it to work at 9:00 am.
We first trolled down in front of Bear Island, the location of Hammocks Beach State Park. We had two rods out and one hand line. One rod was using a weigh instead of a planer to keep the spoon down.
As we turned and came back up Bear Island we got our first Spanish on the hand line. It turned out that one was the only one we got by Bear Island.
As we got up around the Inlet we started seeing small schools of Menhaden.
Each time we trolled through one of the schools, we would pick up one or two fish. Unfortunately they all were not Spanish Mackerel.
In fact we started catching more Bluefish than anything else.
I think we ended up with four Spanish Mackerel and five Bluefish.
Ed showed me how to expertly fillet the Spanish, and told me to keep the Bluefish if I wanted them.
I stopped at the tackle dealer on the way home and bought a scaler. When I got home I sat on the dock and cleaned the Bluefish with the full knowledge that to a certain extent Bluefish are the unwanted seafood delicacy or as I like to call them, the zucchini of the ocean.
While I like them grilled outside over an open flame, I was not able to sway any taste buds when I grilled one. The rest of the group was unimpressed with the Bluefish.
At the same time, I put on the grill a small piece of King Mackerel and some Mahi-Mahi. When that was all done, I quickly fried up a pan full of Spanish Mackerel to go with the other grilled fruits de mer and Shrimp.
It was an unanimous vote that the fried Spanish Mackerel was the best fish of the evening.
I'll keep trying with the Bluefish recipes, but I have my doubts that I will be find something to make it nearly as good as Spanish Mackerel.
