No pictures, because there isn’t much to report.  The wind can’t decide which way to blow and the warm water was blowing nearshore then a couple miles out and then back and so forth.  I don’t know if the fish didn’t like their water in constant flux, but they sure didn’t appear to be within casting distance of the shore.

Sunday yielded not a single bite on the Gotcha, and even more surprisingly…nothing on a double bottom shrimp rig.

Monday – I hit the beach in Duck with my uncle a little after 6 a.m.  I’m only 3 casts deep and a 16″ blue flat annhilates my Gotcha.  Good tussle and he hits the beach and straight to the cooler.  10 minutes later, Uncle Pat nabs a 13.5″ speckled trout on a leadhead jig tipped with a plastic grub.  Looking like quality is the name of the game today.  Then everything dried up.  Another hour and a half of casting with 0 hits to show for.  Sporadic fishing with the Gotcha and double bottom rig throughout and nothing to show for.

Tuesday – the cold water was back in full force and the fish were not in the mood to eat or they weren’t even in the same ocean.  No bites…tough.

Stay tuned for a fishing report from the Crystal Coast of North Carolina at Emerald Isle.  We’ll be driving south on Wednesday morning to spend the second half of the week with my wife’s parents.  Hopefully warmer water will bring more hotter fishing action.  Can’t go any direction but up!

The surf fishing slowed down just as fast as it picked up, but 4 of us made it down to Bogue Inlet Pier to test the waters after dinner.  Pinfish and some kind of wierd sculpin-type fish were the big biters.  Caught a few spot but nothing to write home about.  One of our friends did catch this little spadefish – a first for him.

At about 8:00 p.m., someone hooked up with a big tarpon and it gave him the run-around for a couple hours.  FInally, with a big crowd gathered at 10:15 p.m., they brought him to gaff and landed the tarpon.  Weighed about 60 pounds (I would have guessed higher, but they are a slim fish).  Very neat to watch that happen – never seen a tarpon landed on a pier.  Turns out they caught an even bigger one earlier in the day that pushed 75 pounds.

The other entertainment of the night were the ever present sharks that swim around the pier pilings at Bogue Inlet Pier…our crew had 2 hooks straightened out by the 6 footers as they whacked pinfish that were being reeled in not quite quick enough!  Fun night!

Finally….the water cleared up, the baitfish were in tight with the beach, and the fish were biting. Kara and I must have caught 25 fish today.

I picked up 3 bluefish at dawn with a Gotcha, then the bottom fishing got good. Pulling nice spots and sea mullets out of the breakers.

Kara pulls her first double ever…2 keeper sea mullets!  She also caught the nicest bluefish of the week on fresh shrimp…quite a fight!

Around 11 a.m., I waded out chest deep and started hurling my Gotcha. 10 minutes later, I had a good fish on that turned out to be a nice Spanish mackerel…unfortunately, he came off when I tried to swing him onto the beach after fighting my way through the breakers. 5 minutes more and I had a repeat performance with a bluefish. My luck improved though and I landed a couple more bluefish. Then I spotted a flock of birds working the water about 1/3 mile down the coast. I grabbed my Gotcha rod and ran down in time to pull a Spanish out and get cut off by another before the fish sounded and were gone.

Ended the day with quite a nice cooler of fish which were grilled that evening over charcoal…delicious.

I woke up at 5:15 a.m. only to hear the thunder crashing and the lightning coming through the cracks in the blinds. Used the extra time to catch up on some sleep and finally hit the beach around 8:45. Fish were out in force in the dirty water, but the only problem was that 90% of them were 12-16” sharks.

Must have caught a dozen today… did catch 3 small spot, a croaker, a small sea mullet, and this fish that I wasn’t sure what it was…juvenile bluefish maybe….but I don’t think so…any ideas?!?!

I may get out tonight after we get back in from dinner, but more storms are in the area, so I’ll probably just wait until tomorrow to give it another try.

Tip: Spots are a little more oily and fishy-smelling than most bottom fish and make great cut bait. Bluefish can be seduced with a couple strips of spot attached to a Fireball rig.

Got onto the Crystal Shores yesterday, but didn’t get the chance to fish until this afternoon when we moved into our condo. Went out this evening for a couple of hours with fresh shrimp and managed to pick up 5 fish – a sub-legal flounder caught by Kara, 2 sea mullet (one was about a pound, real nice fillets!), a spot, and a 15” shark. There were some serious storms on Saturday and the water was real stirred up, so I guess the bottom fish were taking advantage of the dirty water, but blues and Spanish were no where to be seen…maybe tomorrow.

Tip: Don’t buy a disposable Styrofoam cooler, just buy a good one and designate it your fishing cooler. I was shocked at the cash register when a Styrofoam cooler rang up $5.30! I used to buy those for $2.29 only 5 years ago.

Well, I’ll spend the rest of today packing up the car for next week’s beach trip with Kara’s family to Emerald Isle, NC.  Can’t wait!  I’ve got the fishing rods packed and the tackle box has been re-supplied with the plugs that I lost to razor-sharp Spanish mackerel teeth on the Outer Banks last week, so I’ll be in the surf everyday for the next 8 days.  Hopefully, I can resist the temptation to go to the pier this week….had to replace the fuel pump and some burnt wiring in my S-10 pickup on Monday, so I got stuck with a pretty hefty bill there…but gotta do what ya gotta do!  Tune back in…the condos where we are headed usually has decent wireless access so I’ll try to post updates often of HUGE FISH!!!

I’ve been keeping tabs on all the fishing reports I can find the last couple of weeks in lieu of it being that time of the year when I am going to the beach.  In addition to the Bogue Inlet Pier fishing reports that are great for Emerald Isle fishing, here are some other great links.

This website links to a northern, central and southern fishing district report for North Carolina and is updated weekly.  It has good reports for surf/pier, inshore, and offshore fishing prospects.

Outer Banks Fishing has some good links to local piers and tackle shops and also includes a message board that carries some good fishing reports from time to time.

At PierandSurf.com there is a great message board that carries lots of local fishing reports from fishermen bragging on their catch.  Also a great place to ask specific questions about an area you might be interested in fishing.

One last site I’ll mention is Joe Malat’s surf fishing website.  He is an avid surf fisherman and has posted numerous articles on everything from pompano to bluefish.  He also tries to post a weekly fishing report on Outer Banks surf fishing.  Some of you might find his website helpful.

Wire leaders have their place at the coast, especially if big chopper blues are running through the surf or if you are dropping baits to barracuda on a sunken wreck…   but, here’s a tip that I think will save you some time and headache when the Spanish mackerel are making their presence known along southern Atlantic beaches during the summer months.  Spanish mackerel are notoriously gun-shy of striking lures retrieved from piers and their wariness increases exponentially when a wire leader is included at the business end of your fishing line.  Instead, some people tie flourocarbon leaders or try to make their own monofilament leaders…which is fine.

But, I have gotten into the habit of buying 4/0 or 5/0 baitholder hooks in Eagle Claw snelled hook packages (usually 6 hooks and lines).  All you need to do is snip the hook off the end and tie a Gotcha plug or spoon onto the tag end and you are ready to go.  The loop is already perfectly formed and just tie it on.  The baitholder hook is large but certainly isn’t a waste.  I love catfishing as much as anything else fishing-related and the hooks hold chicken livers and cut bait great.

Just a little tip to save you some time when the Spanish mackerel are slamming baits and you don’t have the time to sit down and tie a hand-crafted fishing line leader.

On Saturday afternoon, I decided a trip to the NC Aquarium at Roanoke Island was in order.  If you haven’t visited before, make it a priority…what the aquarium lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality.  There really aren’t that many exhibits as zoos and aquariums go, but the enclosures and tanks were beautifully created with some really great specimens.  Here’s a sampling.

A neat sculpture at the entrance to the indoor exhibits

More sculptures of cobia, stingrays and more hanging inside the aquarium’s entrance.

Had to throw in this picture of a water mocassin in the freshwater exhibits.  They also had a huge rattlesnake on display.

Here are the girls taming a monster alligator like Steve Irwin…Kara on the right, sister Abby on the left

Cool picture of air bubbles escaping from a river otter’s hide as it swims with a partner.  Awfully cute animals, but nonetheless, I’ll still be trying to trap them this fall.

A couple of sliders in one of the river exhibits

Who knew I’d be able to get this close to a 15 pound common carp without shooting it with my bow.  There were some 25 or 30 pound giants in the same tank but wouldn’t swim close enough for a picture…I guess they could sense danger!!!!

This was the lone sea turtle on display, really colorful reptile…absolutely beautiful!

Last but certainly not least, a massive tiger shark that was the largest specimen on display in the entire aquarium.  The open ocean saltwater tank was really incredible…70 pound cobia, a school of 15 pound bluefish, jack crevalle, groupers of all sorts, triggerfish, grunts, amberjacks, barracuda, an assortment of sharks, and much much more.

Next time you are at the Outer Banks swing by Manteo and visit the aquarium.  I should mention one really neat exhibit that allows you to touch stingrays as they swim around a circular pool.  There are also some horseshoe crabs to feel and some sea urchins and starfish round out the touchy-feelies…

I slept in on Day 3 and didn’t make it to the pier until the afternoon around 2:30 p.m.  Turns out I didn’t miss much in the morning with only a few blues biting.  I caught 2 blues pretty quickly with the Gotcha plug and then the day got interesting.  All the anglers were getting excited as we saw this school of fish approaching the pier.

Turns out the school was menhaden, but there wasn’t any predators in the mix except for one big king mackerel that disappeared quickly as the plugs came raining in…

But, he made a serious mistake and showed up on the end of the pier and the rest is history…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…drag was singing, but those king pier bums are good at what they do.  They brought him in slowly but surely and an expert gaff made sure he would be steaks on the grill.  Low 40’s…and a real pier fisherman trophy!

Not long after the king was landed, a cobia swam through, but wouldn’t take any baits.  Then a school of big bluefish were equally disinterested in the plugs offered…8 to 10 pounders!  The menhaden school hung up in front of the pier for about an hour and a half though and I managed to catch a few more bluefish before it was suppertime…you guessed it…fresh bluefish.  We fried up the 10 bluefish that I had kept from the last 3 days and they were delicious!  I’ve got 2 nice packages of Spanish mackerel fillets that are going to be great on the grill soon! 

To see some more pictures of the king mackerel fight and more…click below

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