A tale of two beaches – mid-December report
Been too long…sorry; the internet fishing has been slooooow since Turkey Day, but the on-ground fishing has been better. Let’s start with the basics. Water temps are ranging from about 50 north at Duck to the upper 50s, south. The sound is holding at around 50, but this is much more dependent on the day/week’s weather and winds. After a cool October, November and December have been unseasonably warm and the El Nino-influenced forecast suggests continued above-average temperatures.
To synopsize North Carolina’s current surf fishing report, the fishing at the Outer Banks (VA state line down through Cape Lookout) has sucked and the fishing in SENC (everything south of Lookout) has been excellent.
The surf on the north beaches of the OBX (north of Cape Hatteras) has generally been rough and dirty in December. Reports have been scarce. There had been a good trout bite, with Kitty Hawk Pier singled out a few times, but with the water temps down to nearly 50 now, it will take a warm up, along with improved surf conditions, to get the trouts to bite again. The OBX south of the Cape had a decent run of small trout in late November, but it’s slowed since. A few keeper trout have been caught in Buxton over the past week or so. The south beaches of Hatteras Island did report an excellent bite of blowtoads and there have been a few keeper flounder coming from the inlet area. The only other reports have been of stripers – the sound seems to have been fishing fairly well. I heard of a 32 pounder caught around the old Mann’s Harbor Bridge, which is an absolute monster there. Live eels will snare the larger fish. There’s also been a few reports of jumbo stripers in and around Oregon Inlet. My sense is that not many people are putting forth the effort, but there are definitely some fish around and, weather-depending, the northern OBX may get some nice slugs of Chesapeake fish as we move into winter. Reports from VA indicate that the striper fishing is really beginning to heat up, with big fish staging near the mouth of the Bay. Although there had been a good run of big drum at the Point in the October/November timeframe, drum (puppy and larger) action in the surf has been unusually slow this year.
The trout fishing in SENC has been excellent. Still tons of spikes, but enough keepers and nice fish to keep things interesting. There are no hotspots to report, because the fish are all over. I’ve been able to work one or two holes all season with consistent action – makes life easy! My last excursion – a daytrip last Wed/Thurs – found the water temps down a couple degrees and the fish more bunched up. I was a bit disappointed that there were still many – if not more – small fish than earlier in the season, but I also managed my largest speck of the year – a 23″, 4# trout that hit my trusty purple demon mirrolure at night. I’ve also heard of some good catches of big sea mullet in the surf. Inside, stripers have been getting a fair amount of press in SENC. The New Bern area has been particularly good for nice school sized fish. From Lookout, there have been good catches of trout from the jetty, with both specks tight to the rocks and nice gray trout a little further out. On the other hand, the false albacore fishing was really tough this year; got off to a pretty good start, but then really fell out for the last few weeks of the guide season.
Along the rest of the mid-Atlantic coast, the big news has been a great run of stripers in central Jersey, centered in the Island Beach State Park area. The fish have been keyed in on sand eels and thin metal (think Ava) and wood/plastic (think needlefish) cast from the outer bars have been scoring best. Lots of keepers have been caught every day for weeks and there are indications that some bigger fish are on their way down.
