Extending 850 feet into the Atlantic Ocean, the Jolly Roger Pier has long been an area landmark known not only for its superb fishing, but also as a great place to stroll. View the abundant area wildlife, including sea and shore birds, fish, dolphin, and sea turtles. The Island’s best sunrises are seen from the Pier, and full moons are a special treat as they come up over the ocean. The pier is fully lit at night and an evening stroll is a tradition for many generations of Topsail vacationers. Guests at the Jolly Roger Inn may walk the Pier free of charge, and they receive a discount on fishing fees as well.

Jolly Roger Pier is located on the south end of the island in the town of Topsail Beach.

Directions from Raleigh to the Jolly Roger:

  * From Raleigh, Take I-40 East
  * Take EXIT 408, the NC-210 exit
  * Turn LEFT on NC 210-S toward HAMPSTEAD; follow NC-210 S for 9.5 miles
  * Turn LEFT to stay on NC-210 S; follow NC-210 S for 3.8 miles
  * Turn LEFT at NC 210-S/US-17 N; follow NC 210-S/US-17 N for 8.6 miles
  * Turn RIGHT at NC 210-S; follow NC 210-S for 2.8 miles
  * Turn RIGHT at NC-50 S; follow NC-50 S for 1.9 miles, crossing Bridge
  * Turn RIGHT at the traffic light to stay on NC-50 S; follow NC-50 S for 6.5 miles
  * Turn LEFT on Flake Ave in Topsail Beach. Follow the signs to our office

Divers Rock is a popular fishing spot about 3-4 miles outside of New River Inlet.  It actually is a series of rocks, hard bottom and ledges that cover about a square mile or more.  The following GPS co-ordinates are good starting points, then just use use your fish finder to pin point interesting bottom structures and fish. 

N34 29.420 W77 16.370
N34 28.284 W77 16.108

This is a very popular location to catch Bonito and Spanish mackerel in the early spring.  Very good bottom fishing too, especially for Black Sea Bass

At the end of World War II the Navy established the US Naval Ordnance Test Facilities at Topsail Island, North Carolina, for Operation Bumblebee, a top-secret, experimental project to develop and test ramjet missiles, which advanced the Nation’s jet aircraft and missile programs. So successful were the tests conducted at the Topsail Island site that the ramjet proved its value, opened the way for the advance of supersonic jet aircraft design and brought the United States to the threshold of modern space technology with the Talos, Terrier, Tartar and Sea Sparrow missiles aboard naval vessels. Named after a bumblebee, which although aerodynamically unable to fly, does not know this and flies anyway, this operation lead to the maturing of supersonic aircraft and shipboard missile design in the mid-20th century.

Topsail Island was the third of three widespread test sites established along the Atlantic seaboard in the closing years of World War II, and the first permanent ground for missile testing. The Topsail Island site, placed in operation in March 1947, incorporated rigid structures that were designed and built for specific uses related to the assembly, firing, monitoring and perfecting of experimental ramjet missiles. The buildings associated with this testing, the Assembly Building, Facility Control Tower and Observation Tower No. 2 possess exceptional importance because they are the only above ground resources remaining at these three sites where the Nation’s burgeoning ramjet missile program grew from experimentation to maturity. The Assembly Building is a one-and-a-half-story masonry building and the Control Tower is a three-story reinforced concrete building. Observation Tower #2 is an unaltered example of the seven instrument towers erected on Topsail Island.

The first explanation of the theory behind the ramjet engine was made in 1908 by a French engineer, Rene Lorin, who speculated that exhausts from standard internal combustion engine, if directed into diverging nozzles, produced jets that would propel the vehicle. During World War I, Lorin brought his theories of the ramjets to the attention of the French government, suggesting that it might be used to defeat the Germans. He was not taken seriously at the time, and little attention was given to refining ramjets at the time. The incentive came in World War II with the impact of Germany’s V-2 rocket assaults on France and England in 1944. Following the war, the research and development of high-altitude warfare became a vital and competitive affair on an international scale. In the United States, the first test site for ramjet missiles was at Island Beach, New Jersey, managed by the U.S. Navy in association with the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the Kellex Corporation. The second installation was activated at Fort Miles, Delaware, in early 1946. However, by April 1946, a joint report by the Navy and its partners identified Topsail Island as the most suitable location for a permanent test site.

Naval and Marine personnel, numbering 500 men, and led by Lieutenant Commander Tad Stanwick, arrived at the site by mid-1946 to begin installation of the facilities needed for the testing. Research, development and testing of the missile components were handled by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Silver Spring, Maryland, and the two-stage rockets, consisting of a solid booster to launch the missile and a ramjet engine to bring it up to supersonic speed, were made at Cumberland, Maryland.

During the next 18 months, an estimated 200 experimental rockets, each measuring six inches in diameter and between three and 13 feet in length, were fabricated at the Assembly Building, dispatched to the launch site, and fired along a northeasterly angular deflection of 15 degrees to the shoreline for a maximum clear distance of 40 miles. Despite the initial success of the US Naval Ordnance Testing facility at Topsail Island over its 18-month span, its location did not fulfill completely the needs of a permanent base because weather conditions and increased sea traffic interfered with testing, and the facility was abandoned and its equipment moved to other sites.

US Naval Ordnance Test Facilities is located along Hwy. 50 on Topsail Island, North Carolina. Take US Hwy. 17 from Wilmington or Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Hwy. 50 east towards Surf City. From Raleigh, take I-40 to exit 408, then take 210 until it joins Hwy. 17 north. The Assembly Building, at 720 Channel Blvd. is now the Missiles and More Museum, open April-mid-October from 2:00pm to 4:00pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (closed Wednesday and Sunday). From November to March the museum is only open by appointment. Contact the Chamber of Commerce for further information at 1-800-626-2780 or visit http://members.tripod.com/topsailjo/society.html.

See AR362, AR366, & AR368 for GPS numbers.

Welcome to Topsail Angler’s Fishing Wiki!.  Wiki means “information fast”.  This knowledge base is intended to help anglers who are fishing around Topsail with info specific to this area.  If you have some content you would like to add or see added, please let us know using the contact us form. 

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The Little tunny, Euthynmus alletteratus, is a member of the tuna family and is also known as false albacore, albacore, little tuna, bonito, and fat alberts.  It is also often confused with the Atlantic Bonito.

Little tunny grow to 20 pounds and have a typical tuna shaped body.  The top of the fish is steel blue in color and silver below with wavy stripes along the rear portion of the back. 

They are migratory, spending their winters off the coast of Florida and then moving to northern waters in the spring and summer. 

They often feed in large schools, surrounding pods of bait.  This usually results in lots of splashing and foaming of the water and attracts many different species of birds.  It also attracts anglers.  Many anglers target this fish with fly rods or light tackle.

N34 14.160 W77 37.870

It’s a great spot for using a sabiki jig to jig up some bait or bottom fishing in the winter.  In the summer and fall you will often find king mackerel, barracuda and Little Tunny on patrol in the area.

See Little Tunny

The Atlantic tarpon, Megalops atlanticus, is a large coastal fish prized by anglers. The Atlantic tarpon is also known as the silver king.  They grow up to 8 feet in length and sometimes weigh 200 pounds. When swimming in oxygen-poor water, tarpons can breathe air from the surface. Tarpon are superb sport, with a long-lasting, powerful fight generally including several leaps. While edible, they are seldom eaten, as their flesh is considered too oily to be palatable.

The body is greenish or bluish on top, and silver on the sides. The large mouth is turned upwards, and the lower jaw contains an elongated bony plate. The last ray of the dorsal fin is much longer than the others, reaching nearly to the tail.

The Atlantic tarpon is found in the Atlantic ocean typically in tropical and subtropical regions, though it has been reported as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as Argentina. Diet includes smaller fish and crustaceans.