Fishing report...

[Rumble Fish aka Poppy]

Fished the OBX last week...arrived Sunday 12/7 and departed this past Saturday morning...fished solid Monday thru Friday - here's the report...

For Stripers, which we targeted, the operative word would be scattered! And in a place like the OBX "scattered" translates into having to cover a lot of area from the northern beaches of Kitty Hawk and Nags Head down to Frisco and Hatteras Inlet...in between there's some 75 miles of ocean front to explore!

Although Stripers and some good size ones at that can be caught off virtually any beach or inlet down there this time of year, the truth of the matter was that it was the same old thing of "being in the right place at the right time" or "should have been here yesterday"... For the times we were at the south end (Hatteras Inlet or False Point) and doing squat, the Stripers were thick up at Oregon Inlet...and of course when we went north later that day or the next day, the Stripers showed up at Buxton or Avon at the south end. So, the bottom line was the fish were too dispersed and unpredictable to really get a handle on-just a case of way too much beach to cover and not enough concentrations of the Linesides in the surf to warrant a lot of success-typical surf fishing!

But we did manage a few fish...the 2 of us got a dozen fish over the 5 days of hard fishing...from 15# to 28#...about half came on bait (bunker), while the rest came on lures (mostly metal)... The high point of the trip was nailing a 42"/28# Striper on an eel at night on Pea Island...also my fishing buddy got a really surprise catch-39" Red Drum on bunker in Avon! Go figure water temps were about 57 degrees...

Some notes...weather-WINDY and rather COLD at times and to the point you could not fish!!! Water temps were 51 degrees at OI and north of there and about 55 to 59 degrees from Buxton down to HI... Water was "chocolate" in color in many places at times and weeds rolled in on occasion... We encountered strong currents around Cape Point, but most places we could get by w/ 8 oz sinkers when we spiked our rods. Access ramps down near Hatteras Inlet were impassable because of standing water, but was a temporary condition…

Access to the north side of OI was dicey...high tides made it treacherous on a north or easterly wind...for that matter all of the Coquina Beach area was touch and go...but if you could go north on that beach there was some decent looking structure IMHO.

Water temps have fallen rapidly, especially from Rodanthe north...if we don't get an extended warming trend, the OBX Lineside fishing will be over come later this month...so I think the getting is now!!!

Finale note...of course we left out of Buxton Saturday morning and there was a serious Striper bite at the Cape Point that day…Figures!!!

[Sand Van]

Sounds all too familiar!

[FishinFEEver]

Thanks for teh report poppy.

I'll be heading down thursday, and from the sounds of it you need to be willing to move. Not a problem. Hopefully I'll be able to get into some fish as you did. Wouldn't mind a few more before putting the gear away for the season.

[B. Myers]

John,

We were down 12/7-12/9...sorry didn't see you. We managed one fish on Pea Island...on bait. No plug or metal fish.

Meat, Wormy, Ya-Ya did a good job on them this past Sun.

Like you said...right place at the right time....


B.