Birthday fish
Yep, finally had a pretty nice day (for fishing…not so much for catching) on my birthday and was able to pull out a couple respectable soundside stripers – they were both 21″, but one had a beer gut bigger than mine (turns out it was actually a peanut bunker gut). Also released a 16″ and missed about a half dozen hits. With only a bit of current, the bite was slow and I had to continually mix lures and tactics to entice a strike. The fat football fish was on my second cast with a black bomber, the 16″ was on a nightstalker mirrolure, and the more svelte 21″ was on a live eel fished on a jig head.
soundside stripers
Rewinding a bit, the day started pretty miserably with a dawn high tide and the surf kicked up from the blow the night before. But, by afternoon, it was a gorgeous day. I found some of the clearest water of the trip on the south beach and Ramp 55 in Hatteras and fished some wonderful sloughs with just one throwback flounder and a light hit or two to show. The moonrise coinciding with sunset was absolutely stunning.
Knowing that today (Wednesday) would be a total washout, I fished most of the night, with the only action being on those soundside stripers. The beaches north of Oregon Inlet (KDH, KH, etc.) are still muddy and disappointingly troutless on an otherwise perfect, calm and moonlit evening. I wrapped up eeling around Oregon Inlet proper and didn’t have a take. I talked to a guy in the parking lot who said two were landed from the catwalk that night – one at 6 pm and one just before I talked to him around 2 am. Not exactly a hot bite.
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