47.9 F
Wrightsville Beach
Friday, March 29, 2024

Hook, line and sinker

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It’s not often June fishing slows down as quickly as it did this year. Extremely hot temperatures, thunderstorms, rough sea conditions and the moon phase have all been blamed for the recent fishing slowdown. Water temperatures are reading in the lower to mid 80s – which is not something that’s normally seen so early in the summer, especially considering that these readings were fairly consistent for last two weeks of June. Unfortunately, not much of a reprieve is on the horizon as weather conditions look to stay hot and even to deteriorate for the upcoming holiday weekend. If fishing is in your game plan for the coming days, inshore, pier or surf looks to be your best bet, but that’s not all bad because that seems to be where the better fishing is being found right now.

We’ll get the offshore fishing report done rather quickly this week as there’s not much to report, namely because anglers haven’t been venturing out mainly in the weather. When conditions improve, expect the kings to be feeding from right on the beach out to around 10 miles or so. Some nearshore dolphin action should be picking up around the 10 mile mark, not to mention the chance at a sailfish here or there in the same vicinity. As always, find the bait and you’ll more than likely find the fish feeding on them.

Inshore, the red drum action continues to be good with anglers reporting good bites from fish along the deeper channels and around the creek mouths. Both live minnows fished on Carolina Rigs and cut bait soaked in the area should draw some interest. High water falling is a good time to set up along the creek mouths as the fish will congregate waiting to ambush their prey being forced out by the current. If the water is rapidly exiting the creek or channel, near an oyster bed or other obstruction that’s breaking up the current is also a good spot to try. Flounder fishing also continues to be very good with some anglers reporting more keepers than in previous weeks. The inlets are good spots to soak a bait as are the same creeks and channels where you are targeting red drum. There’s plenty of live bait readily available if you can throw a cast net but if not, artificial baits will also draw some interest if the fish are around. There are those anglers who fish strictly artificial baits and they do very well, but it’s just hard to beat a natural, live bait when it’s available.

If you are looking for something else to catch, there have been lots of black drum caught around the bridges as well as in the surf by anglers using fresh cut shrimp. These fish can also be found in the creeks and waterways; however it’s difficult to keep the bait on your hook because of all the other small fish, namely pinfish, which are extremely plentiful. Surf anglers are finding some Virginia mullet and black drum along with a few small spots and croakers in the deeper sloughs along the beach. Some flounder, red drum and bluefish have been reported, caught on both cut bait and live minnows. Pier anglers are reporting much of the same with a few Spanish mackerel being caught on Got-Cha Plugs.

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