South Core Banks Report

[crashq]

I just got back from my annual surffishing trip to the South Core Banks (Portsmouth Island, Davis Island area, Cape Lookout area). It was a good trip. The overall numbers of fish were down from last year, but the average size was way up.

We experienced good weather (temps in the 80's) from Saturday (10/19) until late Tuesday night, when it started to rain, or should I say deluge. In a little over two days, the mainland got over 5 inches of rain. I suspect we got well over twice that on the islands. After one afternoon of storms, we dumped about 4 inches of water out of the bait bucket. Unlike last year, we didn't get washed off the island, though. We stopped fishing during the thunderstorms, but were otherwise undeterred. The fishing always seems to improve during/after the storms.

We caught a few puppy drum here and there, but not in large numbers, on most days. One of the other 8 guys and I took and afternnon trip over to another island and found the pups one day. We caught nothing for hours, and then it turned on. We ended up with about 15 each. I caught them all on my light rod, which was a blast. Other than that day, only one other day was "good" for puppies on one tide at one location (this friend hooked 7 and landed 3 at that spot). The weather may have something to do with it. We caught few flounder in the inlets and the backside, though after the storms one buddy caught a thick 20" summer flounder in the mainland side of the inlet. I think the rain from the storms and the colder weather the following week (in the 30's in Raleigh at night) should flush the remainder of the bait and puppies out of the sounds and into the surf.

During that one real good afternoon, I witnesses something unusual. The big mullet (and small ones too I assume) were literally up in the wash. As the tide would recede, their backs would be out of the water, and they would all scramble to swim back into the surf. I assumed that, based on the phenomenal fishing, that the drum were "herding" them into the shallows, but was surprised to see them that far into the shallows. I even saw an occasional samll puppy that got too far into the shallow water chasing them. When the waves receded, they woud also have their backs exposed and then franticaly swim toward the ocean. They looked like salmon swimming upstream into a tiny creek. I was using a borrowed camera, which I forgot had the low res short video capability. I didn't realize this until late in the afternoon. I tried to get a short video of the mullet in the wash, but the memory card was nearly full, so I only made one try. I will check to see if it worked.

Check back and reread this post. I will try to post pictures and expand this report by sometime tomorrow.

[derf]

sounds like ya had a great trip !!!

[Fish4Fun]

You guys did have some warm weather. It has finally turned colder, hopefully the fish will turn on too.

I head over to lookout on the 10, returning the 15. I hope this friggin storm didn't blow all the weed and grass BACK after it finally looked like it was leaving.

Glad you had a great trip!

[brianbutler10]

you just might have been witnessing a 'drum blitz'........sounds like an awesome site.

[crashq]

Strange, though I am logged in, I cannot edit my post.

As I mentioned, the weather was wonderful when we showed up. It was flat, calm, and glassy.



We got camp set up and got the gear ready.


Day One (Saturday)- I was suffering from jet lag after the cross country flight, a 3+ hour drive from Raleigh the day before, and all of the work of unloading. I thought I would take a short nap after dinner before we hit the incoming tide. Well, it turned out to be a good bite and a better nap; apparently the mullet were all over the place. Seven citations (40+ inches) up to 51 inches ere caught, I woke up at 11:45pm Cory came back to camp and was telling Harvey about the great fishing. No one had woken me even thought they were fishing less than 150 feet from camp. I got up and fished until 2:45am, with no hits. In addition, I was so eager to get in on the fishing that I didn't pay attention and got the shock leader knot too close to the left side of the reel. On the first cast, I ripped my thumb open. My casting was terrible; even worse than the first year that I learned. About every second or third cast I would have loose wraps or a birds nest. I guess I should have practiced before flying out here.

Another group was camped close by. They got "spooled" by a few fish. Part of it was inexperience (they had a couple neophytes in the group) and part was just underestimating the fish. One of their guys was amazed about how he got spooled even on his 7 foot bass rod with with 150 yards of 20 lbs braid. We even got cut off a few times the next day, when big fish went over the edge of a shell bank/bar and into the deeper channel. I had a big fish cut me clean off well above the 25 foot long shock leader. Another guy had his 40 lbs Ande shock leader cut clean through 10 feet up from the start of the bite leader.

Here is a hard lesson Mike Sw. got a 51-incher his fish of the lifetime. His buddy Jeff took the photo. Here it is.



Day Two (Sunday) - Nothing much going on as far as puppy drum during the day. The usual flounder spots (in the inlet) weren't producing either. I moved out to the beach. I caught a few flounder in the 12-13 inch range, but no puppies. I tried bait, plastics, and metal. I made it back to sound side of the island and caught a variety of species (all small) including lizard fish, grouper, and black sea bass. The biggest was a grouper of about 10-11 inches. I could tell something was unusual, because there were no cocktail blues there in the channel on the peak current; meaning no bait.




I stayed awake this day and the fishing was far less eventful than the previous night because the bait had disappeared. I believe our group caught seven fish (two citations and five nice puppies) and lost a few to the shell bank. I got a 30 incher and lost the one nice one, despite still casting like crap. Of course the other group that was camping there had parked their lawn chairs and 8-10 sand spikes in the spot that had produced the night before. They planted them well before dinner, so we never had a shot at it. They claimed to have landed 20 puppies (& no citations) over the course of the day/evening.

Day three (Monday)- A duplicate of day two. The only event of note was Mike hooking a 6-7 foot shark near the south end. He said it lit his reel up and came flying out of the water. He described it as looking like a Mako and jumping three or four times before biting him off.

Once again I slept through the evening bite, but luckily the fishing stunk. I got up at midnight and fished for awhile anyway, but gave up after a couple hours.

Day Four (Tuesday) -
We fished the entire island again, and again only caught a few flounder on the frontside and other non-drum fish on the backside. We did see a school of puppies come by 3-4 times in the backside channel, but they weren't eating.

Our last angler showed up this afternoon. He is our "wanderer", who can't fish any place more than 15 minutes if he isn't hooked up, so he scouted the whole islad. He hooked up on a big fish (40"+) early at the mouth of the inlet at the beginning of the evening incoming and then went 3 for 7 on the puppies at high tide farther down the island. Maybe this was the new hot spot.

Late that night the thunderstorms showed up. It was coming down by the proverbial bucketful. No one ventured out even to take a wizz.

Day Five (Wednesday) - The weather was still bad, but the lightning had eased off and the rain subsided briefly (at least in our immediate vicinity) so we bundled up and headed out.

Luckily this one wasn't on top of us.


We pounded the entire island on every tide with no fish. Even the "new" spot didn't work. We tried wading to the sand bar out front, because it gave access to fantastic looking shoal water. No bait equalled no fish. In the late morning and afternoon the storms appeared overhead again, and eventually everyone gave up.

The rain was incredubly hard. This picture gives you an idea. That is not fog obscuring the water, it is rain. Normally, you could see out to the horizon, even during the storms, but here it was raining so hard that you could see about 200 feet maximum. This photo is facing towards the ocean (to the right of the photo above) and you cannot even see the breakers.


One of the guys went over to the next island and found some puppies on the incoming tide. He landed two and said that the guys he went with were loading up on small puppies on plastic grubs. He also said that he was broken off by three large fish that he couldn't stop. Given the relative inaction where we were, it sounded like fun; even though I thought that he "big fish" were really sharks beacuse his 80 lbs bite leader was where the line broke. The weather got really bad that night with massive amounts of rain, very strong winds (that signalled the arrival of each new storm), and frequent lightning within 5 miles of us.

All attempts to fish the evening tide were thwarted by extremely close lightning. It was so close that a couple of the guys took our rods out of the holders and laid them down against the tables in one of our (open-ended) shelters; fearing that they would attract lightning to the camp. (Nothing like a bunch of twelve foot lightning rods)

Day Five (Thursday)
The rain continued that morning, but the lightning dissipated so we fished. Most guys focussed on our island, but Wayne and I kept pushing to go over to the other island where he fished the day before. Finally, the storms broke.


Wayne and I then convinced Jeff and Mike to drop us off on the other island about 11-12 o'clock. The fishing was dead slow there. Two other guys had caught five puppies using gold spoons over the cours of the day. They were chasing scattered schoools of mullet up and down the beach; picking off one puppy drum here and there. We started with the fishing in the channel that ran from the inlet straight out to the ocean. Watyne was using his big rod. I was using my light rod because I prefer to fight puppies on it. Wayne hooked a big shark in the channel; confirming my suspicions about his previous day's fishing. Other than that we caught nothing. I switched to leadheads & plastic as well as metal and fished up and down the beach. Still nothing. We watched the guys fish the offshore sand bar on the other island; wondering whether they were hooking anything since they were out there for awhile. Later they had disappeared indicating that they hadn't.

As soon as the tide started to cover the sand spit that we were on, we started noticing both small and large mullet in the waves that washed over the spit and into the channel. Wayne hooked a puppy, so I went to rerig for bait. By the time I got back, he had landed a second puppy. I cast in and immediately hooked up. Wayne landed another one.

The deeper the water got, the better the fishing got. Pretty soon you expected a bite on every cast. I switched over to a 4/0 barbless circle hook to minimize any damage to the fish. The next two fish swallowed the hook. I could barley see the eye on one and couldn't see the hook at all on the other one. I stopped waiting for the fish to take off so I wouldn't gut hook them. We kept looking at our camp across the channel and wondered why they hadn't come over. Everyone was there, and they were watching with binoculars. By the time they did arrive Wayne and I had hooked over a dozen fish apiece (all in the 24-30 inch category). Pretty soon I was fishing in waist deep water (with swells on top of that) and had to move up the beach. By then Wayne had found the mullet in the wash and hooked up. Mike Sw. had hooked up. Jeff was pounding thewater with his flyrod. Poor MIke Sc. had yet to hook a fish tthis week. I walked him over toward our earlier spot, cast in, said "fish here" and promptly hooked up. I pointed, and siad "cast three". He did and promptly hooked up.

We walked up the beach and cuaght fish there. You could cast in a foot of water (behind the waves run-up on the beach) and hookup. Jeff got a 28-30 incher on the flyrod. He would have had more, but he was fishing to deep. Wayne ahd caught enough that he stopped fishing and had a Stogey



I stopped to take pictures.






Eventually dusk forced us to leave so we could navigate the tricky channel crossing. It didn't matter, the evening bite was just as good (but different). The storms reappeared, but we were already bundled up. We started in the inlet. On my first cast, I reeled in to hear a grinding sound. Evidently sand had blown into the reel when it was layed down during the storms. I couldn't go spend a 1/2 hour rigging up during the bite. I washed it off and kept using it. By now I needed new bearings anyway. The noise disappeared at least for awhile.

[crashq]

Day Six continued - Evening
Wayne hooked a citation in the Saturday spot and I landed a 28 incher; both on the incoming. The rest of the guys had given up and moved out front onto the open beach. At high tide they were rewarded. They landed several citations. By now they were spot hopping. I moved out front and had a couple healthy bites that picked up the bait and came straight in with it. I eventually would set the hook but never hooked up. I couldn't get them to swallow it. At least I was casting better; still poorly, but better. The bite slowed shortly after I moved to the front beach. I convinced one guy, Chris A, to stay there. He hooked and landed a 47 incher right next to where I cast. He then landed a butterfly ray, which I had never seen before



Day Seven (Friday) - Once again everyone tried to fish every bit of our island with no luck during the day. It was overcast and cloudy with off and on rain the entire day. Every time you thought it was going to break the little patch of light would disappear. The mainland got well over 5 inches of rain during the 3 days of storms. We easily got two or three times that on the island. Wayne and I kept pushing to go back over to the other island, but couldn't convince anyone, despite the fact that it was the only spot we had caught puppies during the daytime.

The storms rolled in again and so did the mullet. They were everywhere. There were so many that they darkened the whole inlet. Three casts with the net yielded five gallon ziploc bags full of bait. We bundled up for the last day of fishing and headed out. As I was walking out to the front side. Wayne hooked a nice fish in the inlet. I helped him land it 15 miutes later. I taped out at 49 inches. I stuck it out there for awhile because the inlet fished better on the incoming and the front side was fishing better on the high tide. I got a 28 incher before the current got to swift to hold with an 8 ounce weight.

I moved out front and found the guys hooking citations one after another in the howling wind and driving rain. They hardly noticed theweather. I was casting like crap, and my reel started grinding again. I noticed the weather. I couldn't buy a fish. I was relegated to being the rod holder and photographer whjiile everyone unhooked fish. Mike Sc. and I walked up the beach, where I cast into a cut. Mike's bait landed 5 feet from mine. He instantly hooked a 49 incher. I walked over and talked to Cory. I cast in near him. He hooked a 45 incher. Jeff and Mike Sw. hooked twin 43 inchers. This sucked! I finally tangled with Mike and decided to cut off 60 feet of line becaus I thought it was damaged from the tangle and all the backlashes. I retied my Albright in the driving rain. After a few more citations, I get a bite. I reeled down and set hook. nothing. The rig comes back with the Albright knot still intact, but the 60 lbs Ande broken right below the knot. What the ????. I quickly retied a three turn surgeon's loop in case I messed up the previous Albright while trying to tie it in the bad conditions. Everyone is talking about calling it a night. I persevered and got another bite. Not a timid pickup, but a real bite. I reeled down on the fish which headed straight for Europe. Three seconds later the line went slack. I got a pigtail back. I must have burned the main line while tying the knot.

Not a great night for me, but the other guys landed 13 citations and some nice puppies that night. Despite my lack of big fish during the week, I had a great time, and learned some lessons. Here are a few of the fish.

[brianbutler10]

Absolutely amazing pics......

Thanks for sharing

[diamondd]

thank you so much for sharing it!

[FishLipz]

this is an amazing report. Thanks so much for sharing. It's just like being there!!

Great pictures and beautiful fish!!!!!!