Fishing Report 07/25/2019

 

It’s hard to believe July is slipping away and we are getting ready to move into August, Football is starting back up and college students are already prepping to head back to school. It doesn’t even seem like the 4^th of July even happened, but when you are having fun serving such great customers and meeting new ones the time just fly’s on by. We appreciate each and every one of you supporting our local family owned business. Not to mention the fishing has been great so far this summer and should only get better and better as we head to the fall months.

 

Inshore:

Spanish Mackerel bite has been off over the last week, not that the fish are not here to catch, it’s just been windy. Which has been making it hard to get out along the beach to catch them. We still have been picking away at them the around the inlet and up in the hook at Cape Lookout. Mostly we have been trolling Clarkspoons and Bowed Up Spoons on Sea Striker #1 Planers over the last week. This combo has been putting fish in the boat. We are pretty excited because the winds have switched to the north and looking to stay that way for a few days which we rarely see in the July. So usual rule of thumb is when this happens the mackerel will school up tight and go on a feeding frenzy. We have a few charters out today fishing at the reefs and along the beach in search of the Spanish so we are hoping to hear back some good reports. With the good weather on the way, this weekend you also should be able to catch some while casting Spanish Candies around the inlet areas on the higher tides. If you are looking for the larger Spanish head to the reefs like AR315 and AR285, both of those reefs have been holding some nice fish. We now have Live Finger Mullet In-stock at the shop along with the Cigar Minnows. Both of these baits will be your choice of baits for the larger fish at the reefs.

King Mackerel tournament fishing fires up this weekend with the Raleigh Saltwater Club coming into town, It’s going to be an interesting event. We are excited to see if some of the monsters we have been weighing in the last few weeks are still around. We weighed quite a few that have been in the 40’s, some in the 50’s even one that hit the 70lb mark. The King action has been no secret, the best of it has been on the East Side of Cape Lookout area. We have weighed a few fish in the 40’s that were caught on this side of the shoals. Who knows where the winning fish might come from. Most all the AR Reefs are holding plenty of the smaller fish and we saw a decent bite out around North West Places early last week. Cigar Minnows rigged up on Mack a Hoos and Dead Bait Rigs have been working great. The shop weighed a fish in yesterday that was caught on a Cigar Minnow that was around the 40lb mark.

Sheepshead fishing has been pretty good this week and we have had a few customers that have been fishing for them and doing pretty well. We have weighed a few fish in the 5 to 8lb mark and weighed one last week over the 9lb mark. We have been seeing the best action on Live Fiddler Crabs and Live Sea Urchins. We have both in-stock at the shop.  It’s been kind of 50/50 ratio on the ones we have weighing in as to what they were caught on. The high-rise bridges and docks along the ICW have been producing the most fish. I am sure there are fish on the port wall, but they have been keeping boats 25ft off the wall so makes it hard when trying to Sheepshead Fish.

Flounder fishing has been good over the last few weeks, our fleet and customers have been bringing by limits of fish. Just about every day we have been having fish over the 5lb mark come by the shop to get weighed. Live bait has been the name of the game to catch most of the fish we have been seeing, Mud Minnows and Mullet Minnows which we have both in-stock at the shop. The Port Wall area, bridges and docks all have been great spots to look for these fish. Just remember Flounder love to be around structure, they love to ambush bait so they love to hide for attack. The flatfish also like to get up in the shallows, we weighed some heavy weights this past week that were caught in the marsh. The marsh also has a lot of structure to fish, look for oyster bars and grass edges, usually another good place is deep holes that might be in the turns of the creeks that work through marsh areas. We have been having the best luck on Live Bait but you also can catch these fish on Berkley Gulp, we use the 4” Shrimp, 4” Ripple Mullets and 4” Mud Minnows. Usually in the backwaters we just fish the gulp on Jig Heads or sometimes we will put the gulp right on to a flounder rig similar to using live bait. Now let’s talk about the Ocean Flounder… it’s pretty simple all of the AR Reefs, they all hold fish. Its like anything else, some days they will bite good somedays, they don’t. Best lure to use hands down is a Spro white 2oz bucktail tipped with a 4” White Shrimp, just can’t be beat. Also, always a good idea to put a Live Minnow out off the back why you are jigging the Bucktails, just ups your chances in catching more fish.

Speckled Trout fishing still remains good, we did see a drop in the number of the fish last week when it got so hot but I think the fish just were staying deeper and not really feeding that much. Most of the ones we have been catching on our trips still have been in 5ft to 15ft of water mostly around docks and rocks in the ICW.  Also been catching some fish on the deeper grass edge banks along the waterways. Most of all the fish we have been catching have been caught on Live Bait with slip corks, when the water gets hot like this its just hard to beat Live bait. Now we have been catching some on Topwater Lures but’s its been early in the mornings right at first light, once the sun gets up these fish move off the flats back into the deeper water. Now if you can find some bottom, with grass growing on it the trout seem to hang longer on that, some just staying all day. Grass usually means bait, places to hide and more oxygen making a happy home for the trout.

Redfish have still been hit or miss for us, just not that many around for some reason this year so far. One day we will get into them good the next day they will disappear for a few days. It’s kind of odd when our charters are bringing back more Speckled Trout that Red drum in the summer. But the marshes are starting to fill up with bait now so usually August – November is when we see the most of the fish anyways, so still plenty of time to have a good Red drum season.  We have been getting ready for the Old Drum season around the shop. We now have fresh mullet in-stock at the shop and will keep it until we can’t get anymore, which is usually into November. We also have plenty of custom old Drum rigs along with Blabber Mouth corks, DOA Airheads and Z-Man baits ready to go. If its old drum fishing, we know how to catch them and they are one of our shops favorites fish to target.

 

Piers / Surf:

Surf action has been a little slow, but mainly because of the nonstop southwest blow we have been having. It makes it too rough to fish, but even with that said we have seen some nice Red Drum that have been caught from the beach over the last week. As far as the piers, kind of the same reports, not all that much happening. Now with the wind switch we just had that’s supposed to stay north right on into the weekend I expect the surf zone to get better. The north winds will lay down the beach and making for pretty easy fishing. We should see what we were seeing a few weeks ago with the Spanish, and Bluefish coming in on the high tides feeding right along the beach. Casting Spanish Candies along the surf zone is what’s been working the best for the surf anglers.

Fishing Bait Shrimp, Bloodworms, Fresh Mullet from the surf has been producing a mixed bag of Sea Mullets, Hog Fish, Croakers, Pompano, Blue Fish, Spot and Sharks.

 

Offshore:

Wind and more wind is what we have been seeing in the Blue Water, but looks like a good weather window coming for the weekend and into the first of the week. The Ducks Unlimited Billfish tournament is coming up this weekend so it’s good to see some good weather for the anglers. The boats that have been fishing on the rough days have been seeing a good mix bag of fish. Dolphin, Black Fin Tuna and Yellow Fin Tuna have been hitting the dock. We also have started to see some Wahoo start to show back up in the last week or so, it won’t be long and we will be back into Wahoo season. Last year starting in September and all the way through November the bite was great and we are looking like this year going to be the same. We already received our bait sent up from Baitmaster for the fall so we are ready to go.

We have been getting a lot of calls about the Dolphin fishing, bottom line it has been very spread out from the Big Rock all the way into the beaches. When the water gets as hot as it is, they come in closer to the beach and spread out a lot. Look for a good grass line or flying fish and you'll probably run into some Dolphin. We have seen some decent catches from the North West Places last week. The Monkalures we have in the shop are hard to beat this time of the year. You also may have good luck trolling Mack a Hoos rigged up with Cigar Minnows or small Ballyhoo.

The bottom fishing still remains the same with anglers not having much trouble getting on some Grouper action.  Also, there’s a good mix of Black Sea Bass, Trigger Fish and Snappers on the hard bottoms to be caught.  Sardines, Cigar Minnows, Squid Wings and Mackerel has been the bait of choice for the bottom boat.