Fishing trip not needed; the wahoo are right here

Something mighty strange is going on around here. I know you probably all know from numerous columns I have written that one of my all-time favorite fish to catch (and eat) are wahoo. I have fished for them down in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, even the Virgin Islands, while my dream of dreams is to hit San Salvador where the monsters roam en masse.

As of this moment, though, I am rethinking that dream because over the past two weeks our waters have produced more monster wahoo than I have ever seen in the those places I mentioned above. The bite is so hot here that I have been receiving emails from local friends wahoo fishing in the Bahamas telling me they should have never spent the thousands of dollars to go to these exotic locations when all the big ’hoo are right here, right now in their own back yard.

For those of you who are not familiar with wahoo, their name says it all. Long, streamlined and able to hit speeds around 60 mph, wahoo are amazing pelagic fish. Even their mouth is unlike any other species. Lined with razor-sharp teeth, they have a lower jaw that can open impossibly wide and, from experience, when they eye something that looks tasty, they usually have no problem at all catching it.

Using heavy artificial lures, high-speed trolling has become all the rage for catching wahoo. I’m talking about trolling between 15-20 knots. But when you use this technique there is absolutely no room for error, because the strike is savage and a big fish can peel off a whole lot of line with no effort whatsoever.

Getting back to this year’s epic bite, I will give credit where credit is due, and that goes to local captain Marc Pincus, founder of the SC Wahoo Series and Hilton Head Harbor Wahoo ShootOut. Now in its 12th year, the series has grown from around a dozen boats to over 50 boats this year. Based out of Hilton Head, word has spread and boats from as far away as Charleston are now getting in on these awesome tournaments.

In the past two weeks alone, two wahoo over 100 pounds have hit the scales, along with a 92-pounder, an 87, a 79 and multiple fish over 50 pounds. That is about as good as it gets, folks. The way the series works, the winner is determined by the combined weight of two fish, but you can only fish two days and only one fish per day can be weighed in. I’ll give Marc a high five for that rule, because no matter how big a fish you weigh in on that first day, anyone with one big fish is still in the running if they nail another biggie that second and final trip out.

I entered as part of the Hilton Head Boathouse team. Along with Grant Kaple, Will “Catfish” Thompson and Richard Kerr, we headed out Tuesday for our first try. I had spent countless hours rigging lures and sharpening hooks — I even made a few homemade lures that I was dying to try out. I’ll come clean by saying that as excited as I was about going, my alarm clock that morning was Catfish standing over my wife and I, yelling at me to get up. I am still not sure what happened, but my alarm never went off and since I had all the bait and lures, they couldn’t leave me, so he drove from the boathouse to my house to get my sorry butt up.

To say I got a tongue-lashing all day long is an understatement.

The ocean was picture perfect with a nearly full moon dropping off the edge of the Earth behind us while the sun began rising in front of us. It’s almost religious how beautiful that is. Anyhow, hitting deep water, it was time to fish. Picking out a handful of my favorite lures, out they went and now it was a waiting game.

It didn’t take long before we nailed a wahoo that was somewhere in the upper 50-pound range. Then two more wahoo, plus bonito and amberjacks. Then it happened. Catfish and I were watching as this wahoo, a few ounces shy of 80 pounds, shot straight up 15 feet in the air and came straight down on top of one of our baits. That image has replayed in my mind like a record skipping, over and over again.

What a run it made, easily 300 yards. When Richard finally got it to the boat, looking down in the water I was shocked at its size, but even more so by its vibrant flashing purple and pink stripes.

I am speechless at what is happening offshore here with these huge wahoo. San Salvador? Naw, I think I’ll stay right here.

This story was originally published March 26, 2016 at 3:50 PM with the headline "Fishing trip not needed; the wahoo are right here."