Topsail Angler's Fishing Blog
Red Drum Fishing in Oriental
Friday, September 12, 2008
My freind Randy (owner of NCAngler.com) and I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Oriental fishing on the Nuese river for old red drum. We met up there on Tuesday afternoon.
I knew before I left that it would be a good trip cause the day did not start out well. I figured the fish had conspired to keep us off the water. I noticed both of my trailer tires were a little low on air so I went to remove the cap and fill them. As soon as I twisted the cap the metal part of the stem came flying out and the tire went flat as a pancake. Same thing on the other side. I couldn’t remove the lugs because of rust, so I had to go borrow an impact wrench and compressor to get them off. Then I had jack problems and had to borrow another jack. After 3 hours, I finally got the tires fix and was on my way.
Randy and I met up there around 4:30 and launched the boat. I had stopped at Dave’s (Minnesott Bait & Tackle) to pick up some bait and get the latest fishing report. Soon we were at our desired spot and had our baits and chum out. Not too long latter and the storm clouds started appearing. When the lightening and clouds headed our way we left and pulled out of the water. Day 1 - fish 1, us nothing.
On the second day we got fresh bait and headed out about 4:30 and set-up on a spot near where we had been the day before. We were there an hour or so before when we finally got a bite and then after a brief but thrilling fight I boated our first Red drum, a nice 38” fish. Not to be out done, a hour or so latter Randy boated a beautiful 48” drum! That turned out to be the largest of the trip. A little latter I boated another fish, this one was 40 inches. We waited another hour without a bite and decided to call it a night. Three fish today, not bad - in fact we were quite happy!
We originally planned to leave on the morning of the third day but decided to stay another night after we got washed out the first night. I’m glad we did. Once again we got some fresh striped mullet. There was someone already on the spot we had occupied the night before so we went up river a 1000 yards or so, located the drop-off and set up there. Soon we had our first fish in the boat, my personal best at 46 inches. We caught four more big drum in the next 2 hours and finally called it quits at dark. Five fish today, eight for the trip!
What a great trip - good fishing, catching and fellowship! Cudo’s to Randy for picking the “spot” and for his wonderful hospitality (we stayed at his family’s vacation house on the river).
Post Hanna fishing report
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Everyone I have heard from this week-end wants to know “did Hanna affect the fishing?” Well they say a picture tells the story and that is true in this case. Pictured is my buddy Alan with a one of many red drum he caught today.
He was fishing up at the north end of Topsail in some creeks and marsh just off the ICW. He said the water clarity was decent and the fish were definitely hungry. They fished this afternoon till dark and caught 5 keeper flounder and a whole slew of red drum, most of them in the slot. They had one about 30” long break off at the boat.
All the fish were caught on live finger mullet. They tried a variety of lures and soft baits including Gulp! but the fish wanted live bait, period. He said they couldn’t find very many shrimp in the creeks (the fresh water probably washed them out) but finding finger mullets was not a problem, they are in all the usual spots and plentiful.
Here’s a few more pictures.
Mark’s King
Friday, September 05, 2008
My buddy, Mark who hales from Sanford, is an avid king fisherman. His screen name, pier dweller, is a good indication of where he spends much of his free time. I really enjoy having him on my boat when ever possible and he has entered several tournaments with me. But on the pier is where he is most “at home”. He comes down to Topsail Island for a few days at a time and sits on the end of the pier fishing for kings.
This week was no different. He came down for the week and planned to fish in the Topsail Offshore KMT with me and Gery on my boat as well as fish from his usual position on the pier. Hanna has caused the tournament to be postponed but Mark was able to land the nice 24 pound king shown. He caught it off of Surf City Ocean Pier using a live bluefish! Way-to-go Mark!
Labor Day Week-end fishing
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
I had the opportunity to fish on Friday and Monday of the long Labor Day week-end. Neither day went as planned but that’s fishing!
On Friday I went with Andrew on his 21’ Sea Hunt, we were on the hunt for some big kings. We went to the first set of box cars and jigged up some nice baits then headed for our first stop. Wasn’t much happening there so we headed to the main area we wanted to target. About a mile a way the GPS and Sonar started to act up. So we decided to “Blind” navigate to where we thought the spot would be (it’s actually a large patch reef versus a small ledge) and try trolling. After an hour of that with no luck we decided to use the compass to get us back to within sight of shore.
Then we used our knowledge of the coast line to find some ledges and fished there. We caught one medium sized Spanish before the engine alarm went off. Andrew killed the motor and we began to look for the cause. Everything we could check seemed okay so we restarted the motor with no problems. We decided not to chance staying out and headed for the inlet. Oh yeah, first thing in the morning before we left the dock I noticed that one of the lenses on my prescription sunglasses was missing. I guess that was a harbinger of things to come….......
On Monday I went fishing with my buddy Alan in the New River. I wanted a big speck, that was out goal as there had been several caught in the past week. Before we left the ramp we went to a spot nearby and cast for some live shrimp and a few mullets. It didn’t take long to fill up our baitwell. We launched the boat and headed for a spot where we know some big trout where caught earlier in the week. We fished for an hour and half in that creek with nothing but some small blue fish to show for it.
So we decided to head for the mouth of a creek where a friend of Alan had caught some gator trout on Thursday. We fished for a couple of hours in different spots with nothing but some small flounder as a result. Alan called the friend and we got an exact location on the creek and tried that. Soon after we anchored there I caught a keeper flounder. Then a red drum. Two thirds of the way to an inshore slam, now all I needed was that speck I set out to get in the first place.
It wasn’t meant to be. We caught more flounder, a skate and some more blues. Then we moved. Finally ending the day where we began with the same results. It was a beautiful day, a lot less wind than predicted. No speck but had a good time and relaxed. Alan even gave me some more flounder he had gigged earlier to go with the one I caught. What a friend! Thanks Alan.