Fishing Report 07/16/2015

 

Good weather is in the forecast for this upcoming weekend, with light winds and only a slight chance of rain.  After this week with storms and winds keeping anglers off the water, the good weather will be more than welcomed.

 

Inshore / Nearshore:

It seems like we get a day or two to fish out along the beaches then wind for a day or two. But when the wind subsides like forecasted over the next few days, we’re going to see some pretty good Spanish action. Last weekend, anglers were catching some nice sized Spanish fishing in the Shipping Channel right out the inlet. Also, we’re seeing fish along the beach front and at Cape Lookout. Trolling Clarkspoons is getting the job done on the smaller fish but the larger fish are coming off Live Bait or Dead Cigar Minnows slow trolled on Dead Bait Rigs. It should be good enough over the next few days to do some casting with Glass Minnow jigs, Jig Fish Lures and Kastmasters around the Inlet for schooling Spanish on Light Tackle. Also, there’s been some Bluefish mixed in but not good numbers like we were seeing earlier.  I think that’s because of all the winds we’ve been having. I did hear there was a good number of fish being caught just off Rough Point the other afternoon; the action was pretty much on every cast.

We’re beginning to see some good King Mackerel showing up along the beaches, just in time for all the King Tournaments to kick off.  Last weekend, we weighed a 45lb fish that came from the AR 285 Reef on the East Side of the Cape. Also, there’s been fish caught in the Shipping Channel out to the Sea Buoy. Most anglers are fishing with Live Baits when they can find them.  The backup plan of attack has been Dead Cigar Minnows fished on Dead Bait Rigs.

If you like to catch AJ’s there’s been plenty of them around to catch, I have some friends in town that’s been going over to the East Side and catching all they want to pull on this week.  Some people say you shouldn’t eat them then some say it’s just about as good as any fish they’ve ever eaten. Most of the fish have worms in them but mostly that’s in the tail section.  The best thing about them is they’re pretty easy to catch around the AR reefs.  Bottom fishing with Dead Menhaden or Cigar Minnows and you’ll catch them by trolling small Ballyhoo. The best way to catch them is on the big Top-water Poppers, now you’re talking about some action watching a 30+ fish crashing a Top-water Plug, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Tim, from the shop has family in town this week so he’s been on the water pretty much every day Flounder fishing and he’s been having a good bite. On Monday, he came home with a limit of Flounder all caught working the Port Wall using Live Minnows. He’s been telling me that the fish are there you just have to work for them and move around to find them.  Last weekend, we had a good bite at the nearshore reefs with limits of fish being caught. Jigging Spro 2oz Bucktails (White and Glow) tipped with 4” Berkley Gulp White Shrimp again, was the lure of choice. Something about that combo just can’t be matched.

Sheepshead fishing this year is just about as good as I’ve ever seen it. I’ve lost count of how many we’ve weighed at the shop that’s topped the 9lb mark. In the Sheepshead Jackpot Challenge, we have a fish over 13lbs leading then in 2^nd a fish over the 11lb mark.  This year, seems like it’s going to be the year for monster fish. I talked to a diver a few weeks back that went down around the Port Wall and he said that there was plenty of Sheepshead down around the pilings.  Some spots were so thick he had to move them out of his way. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that there’s a state record fish hanging around the Port Wall it’s just of matter of  being lucky enough to catch it.  Also, all of the bridges are producing good numbers of fish along with some docks along the ICW. Live Sea Urchins and Live Fiddler Crabs are still the best baits to be fishing with. We do have both in-stock at the shop ready for action.

Redfish and Speckled Trout fishing is still off from what we’ve seen in the past years, but this past week we did weigh a Speckled Trout that went over 5lbs. What we’ve seen over the last few weeks seems that more Redfish are moving into the backwaters. I know some of our guides have brought back a few from the Haystack just this week.  I did hear of some around Shark Island at the Cape this past week. So hopefully, as we get into late summer we will see a few more fish push into the backwaters for us to catch.

Already I’ve been hearing of a few “Old Drum” being caught. Usually, in the next few weeks is when we’ll really start to see the fishing pick up in the river. We do have a lot of bait in the river right now remember last year bait was hard to find because of heavy rainfall. So, if the river stay as salty as it’s right now and the bait keeps coming in we could see a great year on the Old Drum. With a few already being caught things are setting up to be real good.

 

Piers / Surf:

Again, this week we’ve had rough surf making the fishing tough.  There’s been some Spanish caught, a few Sea Mullets, Blue Fish, Flounder, Puffer Fish and Sharks. I‘ve not heard of any Black Drum or Red Drum this week but there’s always that chance this time of year for them to be around the Fort Macon Rocks. There’s still a lot of talk about what’s going on with the band of Shark Fishing from the surf. As of now Emerald Isle has a band up on Shark Fishing but other Surf Fishing is allowed and this week Pine Knoll Shores issued some restricted fishing areas along with swimming areas. Atlantic Beach hasn’t made any comments on closing Shark fishing or making restricted fishing areas that we’ve heard.  

 

Offshore:

We saw some Dolphin action last weekend out around the North West Places, Big 10 Little 10 out to the Big Rock. Some of the Dolphin that we’ve been weighing has been caught within 10 miles of the beach, so there’s really no telling where you might find them now. What I’m hearing if you start to see flying fish, start fishing because there’s probably some Dolphin in the area.  Some of boats fishing north are catching some Yellow Fin Tuna but not as good as last week.  We’re in that summertime pattern when fish seem to be scattered out. Some boats are getting lucky and load up and other boats might not see much action at all.

The bottom action has been pretty good over the last week with good numbers of Trigger Fish and some nice Grouper.  Most of the best bottom action has been in that 20 mile range out to 35 miles on the ledges around the 14 Buoy area.

 

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