Temperature break leads to triumphant fishing trip for local crew

Last weekend offered anglers a respite from typical windy winter weather and an opportunity to head for the offshore waters in search of marauding groups of wahoo.

On Sunday, Capt. Matt Eisenberger loaded up his 27-foot Contender – Fish-A-Holic – and headed out of Murrells Inlet with fishing buddies Capt. Jay Sconyers, Greg Plummer and Quentin Faulkner.

The crew dressed in layers to fend off a cold start with temperatures in the upper 30s at the 6:30 a.m. departure time. Before reaching their target area – the Winyah Scarp located over 50 miles south-southeast of the inlet – they hit a major temperature break where the water temperature jumped from the upper 50s to around 70.

“It was something, having all the layers on leaving the dock and as soon as we hit that temperature break everything changed,” said Faulkner, a Marine Science major at Coastal Carolina University and a member of the CCU Saltwater Angler Club. “It was a lot warmer, and the layers started flying off.”

Once at the Winyah Scarp, Sconyers noted a water temperature of 73 degrees.

At about 8:30 a.m., the crew began trolling ballyhoo on Bluewater Candy and Ilander rigs in 180 feet of water in the Scarp vicinity in very nice, two-foot, glassy seas.

“We never left an area the size of a quarter-mile,” said Sconyers, owner/operator of Aces Up Fishing. “We found bait (in that area) and the bite was pretty steady.”

They started off by spotting small blackfin tuna busting the surface and quickly caught a blackfin in the 18-pound range, Sconyers said.

Then, the wahoo bite turned on.

They started with a 45-pounder, then had a double hookup with fish in the 45-50 pound range and landed both.

“Then we had a triple hookup,” Sconyers said. “We lost two but caught one (that weighed) about 60.”

When the crew headed home at about 2 p.m., there were five wahoo from 40-60 pounds and the one blackfin, plus a dolphin in the eight-pound range in the box.

Yes, you heard right, it was an offshore slam on the last day of January. The prolific wahoo bite, however, was not a surprise to Sconyers.

“I do better in December through March for wahoo – that’s when I catch more of them,” Sconyers said. “You’re not going to catch every fish, but we could have had eight wahoo at least. They’re so fast and do so much head-shaking, if you get more than half your bites to the boat, you’re lucky.”

Sconyers also noted there was one very popular color among the skirts the crew trolled.

“We trolled Sea Witch heads and Islander also but all of our bites came on pink/blue Sea Witches (Blue Water Candy),” Sconyers said.

All in all, it was a super day in the dead of winter, a time of year not well known for hot offshore trolling action.

“You’ve gotta pick your day,” Sconyers said. “It can get pretty warm out there (at the fishing grounds). I was down to a short-sleeve shirt. But you don’t want to go out there and get wet.”

This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Temperature break leads to triumphant fishing trip for local crew."