Atlantic Coast surf and shore fishing

I wrapped up a slow week with the two best fish of the trip Thursday evening and Friday (of course they were separated by many fruitless casts).  After a marathon night of fishing on my birthday, Wednesday was a total wash, better for lounging in the hot tub at my Dad’s rental and enjoying a belated birthday dinner at Diamond Shoals restaurant (I had seared yellowfin tuna).  I spent the first half of Thursday working while the wind died down and the tide peaked out, and ventured out after noon with the plan of doing some clamming and oystering behind Oregon Inlet on low tide.  I ended up hitting the north point and inlet instead, mainly to scope out the long bar running from the point to the bridge in case I return later – its nice to know where the slough can be crossed without swamping my waders with cold water in the middle of the night!

Oregon Inlet

Conditions were nice and I casted a Storm wildeye swim shad into the inlet while walking the bar.  These lures are a great imitation of a bunker, aka menhaden, and are pretty irresistible to a foraging striper.  No foraging stripers around this afternoon however.  From Oregon Inlet, I continued my striper pursuit with another soundside foray at sunset.  I found some really nice current which is key to success for soundside stripers, and although the action was very slow, I was able to coax another fat football of a striper to hit a blurple (black over purple) bomber.  This one measured 23″ long x 15″ girth – fat fish!  Since most of these soundside stripers seem to be gorging on peanut bunker (baby menhaden of about 3-4″ in length), I usually try to stick with lures with a small profile.  However, this particular bomber was the 6″ “long-A” model.  With the slow fishing, I wanted a heftier lure that I could cast further to cover more ground.  I also felt like a big noisy lure might incite an anger strike since the smaller profile lures weren’t producing.  This particular fish had about an 8″ long speckled trout in its stomach, an indication that a longer profile lure can match the bait on the soundside.

Fat soundside striper

Thursday late night I fished a nice point/hole formation near Ramp 43 in Buxton on the full moon and falling tide.  Great looking water, but very slow fishing.  I had action on shrimp early and landed a small sea mullet that was immediately cut up to replace the menhaden on my larger rod.  The cut fish baits didn’t get touched in a couple hours of fishing though.

Friday morning, I did a trout tour from Frisco to Hatteras to Buxton and with the high, muddy water, didn’t have a look.  Later, I scouted out a few likely spots on the ride out of town and was pleased to see some relatively clear, but high, water in Rodanthe.  I had one light hit that I do believe was a small trout and then hooked and landed a nice 25″ puppy drum on my last cast along the surfline of a good deep hole adjacent to a broad shallow point.

Rodanthe pup

So, all told for the week: two pups @ 24 and 25″, four stripers @ 16, 21, 21 and 23″, one small flounder, one tiny croaker, and one small sea mullet…and I did well compared to most people!

On the road again...we will be back!