Well, that isn’t precisely true: we had a decent flurry of small sea mullet and throwback flounder one afternoon, and I hooked up, but didn’t land a 2-3 pound black drum and another better-pulling drummy fish one morning.  But, by and large, the surf fishing sucked.  Restricted access didn’t help, but in actually probably made little difference.  I made the knee deep trek past the resource closure to the South Point one pretty morning and it was deader than a doornail.

So that’s the bad.  The ugly was the weather, particularly for the latter part of the week when a low pressure system stalled, driving strong northerly winds (which I particularly dislike during the spring) and regular showers and gusty squalls.  But enough of the negative – let’s talk about the good. 

I found some good, and at times great sound fishing; generally, the action was much better when the winds were down. The big news would have to be the gray trout – or weakfish as they are paradoxically known up north.  There were good numbers of mostly keeper sized fish, sometimes hitting two at a time.  My best fish were around 17” and pushing a pound and a half.  Not large by any stretch, but pretty good for the spring run in NC. And even those small weaks are strong – the first day I got into them, they hit with those classic sea trout hard whacks. It’s been a few years since we had good numbers of weakfish, so their strong return is a good sign.  It’s an even better sign that surprising numbers of weakfish are being reported throughout the mid-Atlantic coast. But it wasn’t just weakfish; we also caught flounder (I saw a 21-incher caught, but most were shorts; bottom of the dropping current was best), a couple speckled trout and the myriad panfish that couldn’t keep their grubby mouths off our Gulp baits.

As much as I love wading the sound, for an entire week of fishing, I could have used a better showing in the surf. However, so often the true measure of the shore-bound fisherman is how we play the hand we are dealt. From that perspective, every fishing trip is a good one and one featuring good number of my beloved weakfish is even better.

As predicted, bottom fishing has picked up along the northern Outer Banks beaches, with both blowtoads and sea mullet in good numbers.  Further south, however, the bottom fishing has been spectacular, with some tremendous catches of sea mullet in particular, from the piers and beaches south of Cape Hatteras straight on through to the SC line.  The speckled trout bite has also been noteworthy, with nice catches in the sound by both bank and boat anglers and decent surf action north of Oregon Inlet.  Some nice-sized gray trout have been showing up in reports from Carteret County south, providing a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal fishery.  Bluefish have been scattered throughout the state, but they are still playing second fiddle to the bottom fish.  Red and black drum are being caught in good numbers at times, with a few nice catches reported from Fort Macon on Bogue Banks recently.

As far as the summer fish goes, we’ve thankfully not heard anything more about Spanish mackerel from Ocracoke.  I’m hoping that was an unsubstantiated rumor.  And, supposedly, the sighting of cobia a few miles off the beach is not an uncommon event in later March and April.  Nevertheless, the first Spanish was reported from Johnny Mercer’s Pier this week – that is confirmed, and again, about two weeks ahead of normal.

Moving to the rivers, shad are still running good, but should start waning shortly. Flows to the Roanoke picked way up last week and are just starting to decrease.   The heavy flows (which draws cooler water from deeper in the lake) and cooler weather have helped prolong the shad run a bit.  Strong flows should have a nice slug of stripers on their way up river shortly.

Forecast is looking more seasonable (in fact, its looks like we might have a nor’east blow this coming weekend), so hopefully we’ll staying within a semi-normal spring schedule and the waters won’t warm too fast.

(http://www.ncwildlife.org/Learning/Species/Fish/StripedBass/StripedBassFishingGuidefortheRoanokeRiver.aspx)

Restoration of the Albemarle Sound/Roanoke River striped bass population has resulted in a world-class fishery enjoyed by thousands of anglers each year. Each spring, beginning in March, striped bass in Albemarle Sound begin their spawning migration up the Roanoke River. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission opens a limited striped bass harvest season on the Roanoke River for anglers who enjoy turning their catches into delicious table fare. Timing of the striped bass harvest season, along with protective size limits, ensure that most of the harvest consists of three- to five-year-old male striped bass.

Good numbers of striped bass first move into the lower Roanoke River during mid-March. Catches at that time are best around the Plymouth area near the Highway 45 bridge. The lower Cashie and Middle rivers, also crossed by the Highway 45 bridge, can be productive as well. As springtime progresses into April, stripers make their way up the river and by the first week in April, the action really picks up at Jamesville, Williamston and Hamilton. Also by the first of April, the first stripers are beginning to appear in the upper reaches of Roanoke River near Scotland Neck, Halifax and Weldon. By mid-April, striped bass fishing in the upper areas is in full swing and it seems as though the entire length of the river is shoulder-to-shoulder stripers. Anglers should note that river flows and weather conditions dictate the arrival and upstream movement of striped bass from year to year so the exact timing of striped bass movements can vary a few weeks either way.

The strong trout bite slacked off in the new year, particularly at the Outer Banks, but also at other likely surf spots in North Carolina.  And even more significantly, there were very few reports of stripers in the surf and no blitzes of blues or bass reported.  Even in the worst of the recent years, we’d usually have reports of at least a few isolated blitzes.  So, the Outer Banks fishing was quite slow.  Fishing was a bit better further south.  The Carteret County creeks gave up some nice specks with consistency over the winter.  Several spots off Bogue Sound are accessible to shore anglers who scored well.  Even further south, blowtoads were reported on cut bait (shrimp mostly) throughout most of the winter.

The water temperatures bottomed out in the mid-upper 40s north and the low 50s elsewhere.  Even those relatively mild winter low water temperatures seem like a long distant memory.  Water temperatures now are varying from the mid-50s north to the mid-upper 60s elsewhere.  It’s no exaggeration to say that these water temperatures are at least a month ahead of schedule.  Of course things can change, but I am a bit concerned about a short – and early – spring run.

Indeed, fishing has picked up – first with lots of blowtoads (particularly at the Outer Banks) and now with sea mullet all over the coast, Hatteras Island south.  Blues are also starting to show up and are already hitting lures.  Ocracoke and Cape Point have had several good runs of red drum.  And, most amazingly, Spanish mackerel were caught from the south end of Ocracoke yesterday and commercial fishermen reported cobia a couple miles off the Outer Banks today.  Both fish normally don’t show this far north till early May.  Up the rivers, the hickory shad run is peaking right now and whites are right behind, with stripers just starting to show on their spawning grounds in the Roanoke, Neuse and Cape Fear river systems.  My buddy in Richmond is reporting lots of shad and a few scattered stripers in the below-normal flows of the James River.  In Jersey, surfcasters have picked at small stripers all winter and Raritan Bay shore anglers have been catching many more keeper sized fish than normal for this time of year.

The weather forecast shows no signs of a significant cool down, so I’d expect to see the fishing explode just as fast as my garden seems to be.  Look for the good bottom fishing to move further north on the Outer Banks within a couple weeks and I would not be surprised to start hearing of good catches of flounder from Buxton south in the next week.  Blues should also really pick up over the next couple weeks, with tons of small fish and an increasing number of the long, skinny “baseball bats” (the first I know of was reported today from Ocracoke). Fish should also continue moving from the creeks into the open sound with most attention focused on speckled trout and puppy drum (Garry Oliver has reported good catches of specks off the “Little Bridge” between Manteo and Nags Head this past week).

Friday update: heard of some nice speckled trout from some southeastern NC piers and inlets and also reports of speckled trout and puppy drum seen, but not caught, from some piers north of Oregon Inlet.  A couple more degrees and they should begin to bite.

Today, we helped release Dani’s beautiful soul from her suffering body.

She was born in mid-December 1996, a bastard and orphaned child to a female black lab knocked up by a rouge neighborhood dog mixed with German shepherd and smaller breeds.  I held her in my hands and arms as we drove her, quivering, away from her siblings (all the rest of whom were black/dark colored) at the ripe old age of seven weeks on a warm winter day, much like today.  Her playful puppy spirit helped me through tough times and, over the years, our mutual love and affection for each other grew as we shared the primes of our youths hiking, camping, fishing, and all manner of other road-tripping.  But some of my most cherished memories are the times that we just laid next to each other, allowing the spring breeze to roll over our contented souls.

Everyone who knew Dani knows that she lived for her Daddy.  Whenever I yelled or got frustrated, even if it was just watching a ballgame, she’d come to comfort me and make sure I was okay.  When I was away on business, she was described as “never relaxed” and often sat longingly staring at the door.  When I’d leave for work, she’d find a perch on the deck where she could watch me leave with sad puppy dog eyes.  With Dani, a leash was usually not necessary, as there was no reason to venture too far and nothing was too important unless it could be shared with Dad.

Over the past few years, Dani slowed down and her once athletic, elegantly slender body got creakier.  Last May, at 14 years of age, we discovered that she had lymphoma.  Still in good overall health, we pursued treatment, which she handled well at first, and in fact was in a strong post-treatment remission for our wedding.  Cancer is a tough foe, though, and we moved toward palliative care several weeks ago, after it became apparent that once reliable treatments were no longer effective and the toll on her weary body was too great.

After a difficult, emotionally draining week, we were blessed to spend a couple of otherwise uneventful days and nights preparing for Dani’s next journey, out of the physical world and into the spiritual.  Last night, we shared stories around a bonfire, at which Dani was able to keep warm and comfortable.  Dani also enjoyed a nice meal of speckled trout and a capful of beer (just like her Daddy) and had a nice visit to our pond for a long drink of her favorite water.  Today, we all spent most of a lovely day basking in the warmth of the late winter sun.  At around 4:00 pm, Sarah and I took Dani to NC State University Veterinary School, where she had received excellent and caring treatment and garnered a reputation as a “sweet girl” and a “great patient” that made her Daddy smile and boast.  Indeed, Dani rarely, if ever, complained.  Lying down on Sarah’s and my laps, Dani passed peacefully into the next life.

It’s cliché, I know, to say that there will never be another dog like Dani, but it is true – and there’s little more I can say or type to capture my fondness and love for this special little soul.  So instead I’ll just say “Daddy loves you, Littles, and Daddy will never forget you.”

Dani

1996-2012

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.

Sarah and I decided to hit the beach last weekend, with confidence in the exceptional short-term forecast, rather than embarking on our more traditional – but less weather confident – Thanksgiving weekend excursion.  A bird in hand is better than two in the bush, I said.  Well, turns out that this Thanksgiving weekend is shaping up very nicely with a cold front today and tomorrow followed by nice high pressure Fri-Sun.  But I digress.  This post is about last weekend.   What can I say – the weather was great and the fishing was pretty darn good as well.

I challenged Sarah to be hardcore: “I used to wake up at 2 am so that I could be on the beach before first light,” I told her.  We compromised and I set the alarm for 6 am, but snoozed till closer to 7.  We arrived in the Wilmington area around 10:30; a full one-quarter of our most reliable possible fishing times (Saturday sunrise, Saturday sunset, Sunday sunrise, Sunday sunset) wasted.  I guess I am just not as hardcore as I used to be, but with the trout creel limit down to four, I still liked my chances to fill up during the sunset/night bite.

We started off bottom fishing the surf at Fort Fisher.  Conditions seemed pretty nice, fishing with seafood market (i.e., fresh!) shrimp top of the rising tide in a nice hole in front of an old wreck, in breezy/choppy surf.  We ended up only landing one nice, 14″ sea mullet before we split for a big lunch to prepare for the main event: late afternoon/evening trouting.  We arrived to our evening spot to find small blues chomping on glass minnows.  Some people consider the small blues simply a nuisance, but to me they are usually a welcome sight indicating lots of bait in the water, good feeding conditions and the likelihood of plenty of leftovers for less aggressive fish species when the sun goes down.  Although it took a while, the trout moved in after dark and the action was very good on a mixed class of fish ranging from about 15″ to 4 pounds.  I landed 6 (released two) and we were given one.  Sarah had one on and then landed a small blue and a monster sized hogfish, both released.

Sunday was positively gorgeous – proverbially “too nice” for fishing.  Indeed the action was much slower, but I eeked out three nice trout between the morning and evening sessions.  Overall, a real fun weekend and we were able to get a good start on filling the freezer for the winter.

I hit the Topsail/Wrightsville area Sunday afternoon and evening, during a window of favorable winds this past weekend.  First the good news – the beaches are loaded up with beautiful soft structure – seems like there is a cut every 100 yards of so along the beach.  At Topsail anyway, these are definitely high tide holes, as they are nearly exposed at low tide, but perfectly setup around high.  On the not-so-good side, the beachfront was fairly lifeless.

I found a couple of small schools of tiny blues and tinier jacks in a few of the sloughs on south Topsail Island during the afternoon and could see groups of small sea mullet scurrying along the bottom in the wash.  They would hit fresh shrimp when I would tip my tandem speck jig, but were too small to hook.  I made quick scouting stops at a couple likely locations further up the beach around sunset but didn’t find any action.  Piers looked slow as well.

After dark, I was able to coax up a couple respectable trout in the 17-18″ range.  However, the action was slow: besides a small blue that ran off with my purple demon mirrolure, those were the only hits I had in several hours of high-falling tide fishing.  Oh, I did have one more hit – by a rouge wave that knocked me down.  The bad thing about the great, warm fishing weather – wasn’t wearing a dry top and got soaked.  The good thing – I was able to keep fishing without freezing my butt off!

Moving on to the second and third-hand reports, when the weather has been favorable, the trout fishing has been excellent.  Most of the surf reports have been coming from mid-coast, north, but the southeastern beaches are starting to pick up as well.  Tons of shorts, but good numbers of nice keepers, with no apparent rhyme or reason as to which you may find where.  Select for the larger fish by using bigger baits – mirrolures, grubs with longer tails, etc.  Usually, though, its just a matter of sticking it out, sorting through the dinks to get a few nice fish.  Could be worse.  Note that the trout limit has decreased to 4 fish at 14″ or larger per day.  My personal preference would be for a higher creel and a larger minimum size (say 16″), but I can live with this.

In other surf fishing news, still lots of black drum around although most are pan-sized.  Again though, you have a reasonable chance of hooking a 2-10 pounder — these are great fighters and perfect eating size.  Sadly, the bluefish have really shrunk.  Most locations along the coast are reporting only microblues in the surf.  Unless the big choppers hit the beach, we are probably going to be stuck with these minis.  If you do get into a school, don’t be discouraged too soon – try jigging a heavy metal lure or jig/grub under the school or right after the school passes, bigger, more desirable fish are often feeding on the scraps.

Despite my first-hand experience above, there have been good catches of nice-sized sea mullet, with excellent reports coming out of Wrightsville in particular.  But all the beaches are having runs.  Some big blowtoads have been mixed in as well.  Still a trickle of pompano from the far southeastern beaches but they are just about gone.  Spanish have been gone for weeks.

There’s been some nice flounder landed at Hatteras Inlet this week and puppy drum seem to be scattered all over the coast.  Some nice gray trout are showing at the Cape Lookout rock jetty and few are being caught here and there in the surf.  Last but not least, there have been some reports of respectable striper fishing inshore, with a trickle of big surf fish showing up, mostly around Oregon Inlet northward.  The biggest I’ve heard of was a 35 pounder, but most being caught are near or just under legal (28″).

Water temps are holding in the 60s along most of the coast, from about 60-even north to the mid-upper 60s down the beach and along some of the south facing shorelines.  This week, we’ve got increasing SW winds (will the big drum show back up?), a cold front Thursday and then a picture perfect weekend forecast.

Started out this morning in the same slough as yesterday.  Real nice surf conditions, but the weather quickly deteriorated with showers and an increasing N/NE wind that approached a gale by later morning.  The slough was slow, with just a couple hits and a 14″ flounder to show for upwards of two hours of daybreak fishing.  Since the tide/current were in free-fall, I decided to check out Ocracoke Inlet and started getting sharp strikes on every cast into the oceanside rip.  Eventually this evolved into a full out fish (or two) on every cast bluefish bite, complete with birds working at times.  The fish were small with many in the 8-10″ range, but I scraped out a near-limit of 12-14-inch fish before taking a break from which I couldn’t motivate my soggy ass to return.  Nice fishing given the conditions!