Harkers is a few miles above Morehead City and, I think, 60-70 miles below Hatteras. They took a pretty hard hit from Florence. One of the waitresses in the little restaurant, next to the Fishing Center, lost her home, and the family was split up waiting for the insurance to kick in. But, they were up and running for our annual King Mackerel Tournament. Weather was nice, mid upper 80's, seas were pretty rough and winds were kicking. We use cast nets to catch our bait. The Menhaden were scattered and the first day we were only able to catch 8-10 baits per boat. The guys that caught more helped out the guys that caught none. The first day our bait well pump went out, so we stayed in and fixed it. Looked for bait in the afternoon. The second day we caught plenty bait and ran about 20 miles offshore looking for cooler water. The water was way too warm and the Kings hadn't showed up yet. Seas were running 8-12' with winds 15-20. We were in my friends 30 Contender and it was an interesting day. The waves were spread out so it wasn't a real rough ride, just up, up, up, and down, down, down. Only 2 other boats ran out with us, all of the smaller boats stayed inshore. We saw a big Sand Tiger cruising with a school of big Cobia following it. We tried to get our baits to the Cobia but no luck. That was our high light of the day, no fish. Turned out the guys that stayed in caught a few small Kings, 8-15 pounders. Usually takes 30 pounders and up to make it on the leader board. One guy caught a big Spanish, was over 11 pounds, the State record is around 13. Third day wee stayed inshore. A couple 20 pounders were caught and one 30+. We hooked a shark that had us going for a bit. It ran hard and fast like a big King, but no luck there either.
Our tournament is 5 days and each boat has to take one day off, boats choice. Since the new storm was heading our way we picked Friday as our "Lay Day". At the end of the day Wednesday we were out of the competition, so after the weigh in we packed up and headed home.
Three of our boats ran offshore Sunday, before the Tournament started, for Wahoo and Mahi. They did well with several of each taken. I enjoyed the trip even though we didn't catch much. I wish I had my camera out when we dropped down in one giant swell. It was easily as high as a two story house. looking straight into it, it looked like the scene in "Perfect Storm". Only, we road right up and over the top. Coming down the other side you got that feeling in your stomach like on a roller coaster, but it was a smooth ride.
Our prayers go out to the folks that live down there. I guess when you live on the coast you have to accept the weather. They had lots of trees down, lots of blue tarps on the roof's. They still went out of their way to make our stay a good one. Some of our guys have been fishing Kings this week, at Harkers, since the 60's, long before our club formed and started the annual tournament. It's brought a lot of joy to a lot of guys and gals.
