Anticipation – a windy, wet and wild weekend at the Cape « Atlantic Coast surf and shore fishing

Anticipation – a windy, wet and wild weekend at the Cape

Ah, where to begin…oversleeping and missing our ferry reservation? Camping in mid-40 degree night temperatures? Sustained arctic 20 kt. N/NW winds? Our traditional camping area closed for turtle nesting? The dog-damaged (and puked in) tent? The disabled truck? I just never know what’s going to happen on this more-or-less annual camping and fishing trip to South Core Banks.

Well, one never knows how any fishing trip is going to turn out. It’s one of the things that absolutely addicts me to this sport – the anticipation of a truly memorable experience.

Back in the day, when Jerry Garcia was still pickin’ with the Dead, my friends and I would hit up two, four or six shows in a row. While we found time to party, we were in it for the music. As any respectable music fan knows, every Dead show was different – a different mix of songs, a different ebb and flow of musical energy – highs and lows, ballads, rockers and jams. Ironically, my return to surf fishing and development as a serious surf caster coincided with the end of the Grateful Dead in the mid-1990s. On a primal level, the elements that attracted me to Dead concerts – a sense of adventure, mystery and anticipation – are remarkably similar to those that attract me to surf fishing. A three-day trip is like a three-night run of shows – the first might rock, the second might be a dud, and the third might include a few special and memorable gems. And then there are those runs where every show is a killer, those trips where every day produces great fishing.

Grateful Dead

The other thing I love about surf fishing (and which incidentally has little parallel to Dead concerts) is the problem-solving aspect of the endeavor. I am an engineer after all. Over the years, I’ve gotten far more selective about when and where I go fishing, tracking the weather forecast, surf conditions, tides, etc. up till the last minute and then making changes to my plans on the fly. Which leads me back to our annual Cape Lookout trip.

Lookout (as the trip is referred to by my friends and I) requires the advance planning that anyone who really knows me knows that I abhor. To secure a ferry reservation and an open schedule for friends, we set the date early in the summer and by the time the trip finally rolls around, there are too many people whose plans are riding on it to make last minute changes or adjustments. Additionally, once at Lookout, “host” obligations put unfamiliar constraints on my fishing flexibility, forcing me to be much less mobile and adaptable than I might otherwise be. From a fishing perspective, I have to think of it as a warm-up for the real fall season ahead. As a party, it is usually a blast.

With that context, this trip was a real curiosity (to put it kindly). The weather was remarkably consistent – and crappy. The wind stayed north and up at 15-20 with just a few brief lulls throughout the trip. And the overcast skies that were supposed to start breaking Saturday never really cleared till Monday. Surf conditions were variable but generally fishable. The new moon tides were intense with ferries delayed for 2 hours Monday afternoon because of high tide flooding. Low parts of the back ORV road were equally inundated. Despite relatively consistent weather conditions, the fishing was highly variable with memorable moments each day.

New moon high tides

Friday late afternoon started (after building shelter and drinking beer) with some excellent bottom fishing right in front of camp, which was situated at the northern limit of the foot access beach at the lighthouse (Ramp 41A). This beach featured a broad point roughly 75 yards north up the beach, opening into a nice slough whose bar could be reached at the end of a cast with the trout rod at low tide. I’m too impatient to be a really good bottom fisher (opting for the activity of repeatedly casting lures or live bait instead), but boy I do love it when a fish hits your bait on every cast. It really brings back those early memories of being a kid when bottom fishing WAS surf fishing. Anyway, this was one of those evenings – fishing was excellent. Toward the top of the rising tide, in about two hours, I had 6-8 blues in the 1-2 pound range on cut mullet and a real mixed bag on shrimp including 2 nice keeper gray trout and a throwback, a couple hand-sized pompano, a decent sea mullet, and a croaker. Carl remarked at how fun it was when I caught fish one after another. I assumed that hole would produce a nice mix of bottom fish all weekend. Not.

Saturday was flounder day. Got one that was fractions of an inch short in the slough in front of our camp on my first cast in the morning, but like so many other times that was the only hit I got there (if anyone has a scientific explanation of why it so often happens that you get a hit or a fish on only your first cast, please share!). From there, I hit the south/bight side of the Cape Point and got into an excellent flounder bite on the bottom of the falling tide, all on soft plastic lures (saltwater assassins and gulp swimming mullets) – unfortunately, the vast majority were short, but I did manage to land one fat 17 incher that was shared, along with some of the blues and gray trout, for dinner among our crew that night.

Sunday was a wild day. Very windy, overcast and quite chilly, but the fish were on. I spent an hour in the morning chasing a small pod of false albacore from the jetty to the point. These fish were just surfing the waves after small baitfish right onto the beach. They had no interest in my offerings, despite a few timely casts right into the fray. I was casting grubs and small metal lures. Four or five fish would pop up, cruising through the waves and spraying bait fish for a few seconds, then disappear, only to pop up again a minute later 20 yards up the beach. I didn’t get any photos, but Capt. Brian Horsley has a few awesome ones posted on his website here. I wasn’t the only one to find the albies feeding in very shallow water today.

French toast (thanks to Brian and Suzanne, pictured!) and bratwurst for breakfast

Late afternoon, I dragged Sarah and Carl (who wisely stayed in his truck most of the time) out to the point, where there was a steady bite of mixed size blues and a good number of low-slot pups prowling the surf line, all readily taking artificials cast into the hard headwind. The conditions were not for the faint-hearted however. Combat fishing at its finest!

Combat fishing

Monday morning, I braved the floodwaters on the back road to hit the point again at daybreak, but the surging high tide made it practically unfishable. I casted metal lures to birds working the south side of the point but just missed a few small blues – it was slow. I found loads of finger mullet sweeping over the shoal water on the tip of the point and netted some to fish live for flounder in the south hook of the point, but again with no action on the super high tide and strong current. On the drive back to camp, the hesitation and bucking that my truck had hinted at on the ride down worryingly worsened and when I thankfully arrived, I woke up my honey by announcing that the truck was dead! After numerous phone calls to and from Annette at Davis Shore Ferry Service, the National Park Service (NPS), and a wrecker, we were fortunate to be greeted by three generations of the Massey family from Newton Grove, NC who graciously towed us back to the ferry dock, saving us a couple hundred bucks in the process. Three tows later (including one particularly humorous one behind the NPS tractor), we were in Sarah’s car on the way to El’s Drive-In for comfort food: super shrimpburgers and super oysterburgers.

(Big shout out to Masons Auto and Truck Center in Smyrna for their good and fair service and for protecting my kayak till I picked up the truck off-hours the following Saturday. Next up: the truck pick-up fishing report from this past weekend.)