A council meeting and a fishing competition make a busy week for Collins

I almost bailed on my column this week simply because my mind (and body) is closer to scrambled eggs than sunny side up. Do I write about the first half of the week or the second half?

After copious amounts of coffee, I finally decided to sit down on one of those donut cushions and see if my swollen fingers could type out a rational accounting of one totally strange and trying week.

I believe I told you that I accepted a three-year position on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council Advisory Committee. On Monday and Tuesday I attended our first meeting in Charleston.

Representatives from every coastal state from Florida on up to Virginia attended, including recreational fisherman, charter captains, commercial fisherman, scientists and others, discussing issues that might affect cobia and mackerels.

Being the new kid on the block, I held back a bit and listened to the different entities. I was seated next to the Virginia representative on one side and the Georgia representative on the other and in between discussions had some really good conversations with both. In all, I have to say everyone in attendance deserves credit for giving of their time so that collectively we might make these fisheries more sustainable.

Did I speak at all? Yes I made comments and recommendations but the one issue I brought up repeatedly was what might happen to cobia populations in North Carolina and Virginia’s sounds if they make the same mistake of overfishing cobia that happened in Port Royal Sound.

The research done here in SC is years ahead of that done in these other states and I tried my best to educate them on what that research had told us.

Another issue I brought up was the new Federal water cobia regulations of one fish per person with no more than six per boat.

Six per boat, are you kidding me? From most everyone I have talked to, two fish per boat is where it should be. Especially after they closed the cobia season last year due to overfishing.

If you cobia fish at all then you know that two cobia is a heck of a lot of meat.

Arriving back here late Tuesday, I was up and heading to the Gulf Stream at 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday. A member of the Hilton Head Boathouse team in the Wahoo Shootout, it looked like the only day during the four-day window that was remotely “fishable.”

I can’t remember a spring with as much wind as we have had this year. Let me tell you that Wednesday was no exception. Fishing with Grant Kaple, Joey Cox and a doctor friend of Grant’s, we got our butts kicked almost from the moment we got off the dock until 6pm that same day.

To make matters worse, we never had a strike all day long and after covering nearly twenty miles of ocean!

Three boats made it out that day and out of the three the only fish caught was a tiny 20 lb. wahoo.

I pulled out every trick in the book and still not a strike. I high speed trolled, dragged natural baits, put baits deep, dropped baits back so far that you could see them and nada.

If you can imagine being in a washing machine for 12 hours, that is pretty darn close to what we experienced. So there you have the good, the bad and the ugly of my week.

With my column written, I can’t decide whether I should hit the hay or pay for an hour-long massage. Any suggestions?

This story was originally published April 19, 2018 at 3:29 PM with the headline "A council meeting and a fishing competition make a busy week for Collins."