Easter on Ocracoke
Well, I actually stayed in Avon thanks to the hospitality of an old high school friend, but most of my fishing was on Ocracoke Island. In years past, when I made more frequent, short weekend trips to the Outer Banks, Ocracoke was an early spring favorite. On southerly winds in early April, chances are good for finding hungry spring bluefish hitting lures by day and big drum on the shoals by night. This past weekend lined up nicely, in the middle of a long stretch of unseasonably warm weather.
I scraped out a nice schoolie striper at a favorite soundside location on the way in Friday and dropped another, both on a nightstalker mirrolure, but the action was slow and it was getting late. Ferried over to Ocracoke Saturday morning for a long day of fishing and after a little prospecting found a decent bite of scrappy 1-4 pound bluefish on small metal lures in one of the nice holes just north of South Point. The fish were mostly cruising along the inside of a bar and were fairly scattered. They were definitely spring blues picking around the bottom, as I need to switch to a slightly heavier lure and a slowish, halting retrieve to get hook-ups. Landed 7 and lost a few that shook the hook – plenty sporty on the trout rod! Unfortunately, that was the end of my action for the weekend. There was no repeat bite on the falling tide in the afternoon and the night bite at South Point didn’t materialize despite a surging south wind and some nice surf. Sunday was also a bust; I got to the Island late, around high tide and again, the fall did not produce. I wound up fishing a nice break in the bar between Ramp 55 and Hatteras Inlet in the late afternoon, but my bait (and lure) did not get touched.
Ocracoke is shaped up nicely. Its always interesting to see how the ends of the island have weathered the winter. The north end continues to gain sand and I must say I liked it much, much better when the channel was chewing up against the vegetated banks – great flounder fishing off those banks and often some nice action for fluke, gray trout and blues in the deep channel a short toss away. The south end also can vary a lot from year to year – this year is more of the classic South Point formation, with a well-defined inlet, shoals at the mouth and a shallow sand bar running a few hundred yards up the beach. The ocean beach at Ocracoke can sometimes suffer from a mild slope, but there are some well-developed holes and sloughs along the beach that should hold fish at most tides.
South End
North End - look at all that sand!
