By Skylar Walters
The fishing is still decent for it being the last full week of November. A couple of nights of freezing conditions have finally brought the water temperatures down into the mid-to-lower 60s, but the extended forecast predicts temperatures will remain pleasant into the weekend. With no extremely cold days or nights in the foreseeable future, the fishing might just continue being strong well into the month of December.
Now, neither the fishing nor the weather has been quite as good as it was several weeks ago, but for it to be so late in the season with reports of lots of fish being encountered, it is apparent that this has been an unusual season thus far. How far toward the end of the year it will go remains to be seen.
For those who have been waiting to see spots, they have finally arrived and have been here in good numbers for the past week. The piers in Surf City and Topsail have been doing very well. Some fish are showing up in our local waters, with the inshore locations producing decent catches. Fresh shrimp and bloodworms are the best bets and are also enticing some Virginia mullet and a few pompano to bite. Speaking of Virginia mullet, anglers fishing the surf areas for the influx off fall mullet are still waiting on their arrival. Anglers are finding some fish but not the quantity or quality of years past, so the thought is they haven’t gotten into our area just yet, but that could change just about any day now. Pier and surf anglers are also finding a lot of bluefish on both cut bait and Got-Cha Plugs. Some red and black drum have also been reported along with a few keeper flounder.
Off the beach, the Spanish mackerel bite has pretty much evaporated, as the majority of the population has vacated the area. Trolling Clark Spoons near the inlet will, however, produce the most bluefish you can handle with some fish pushing the 3-pound mark. Anglers have reported some decent flounder fishing around the near-shore ledges and around the inlets with Carolina Rigged finger mullet being the bait of choice. Some anglers are still finding false albacore for some catch-and-release fun within a couple of miles of the beach, however action has been sporadic.
The king mackerel fishing has been steady within close proximity to the beach with a few anglers finding fish as close as 3 miles out. The better fishing appears to be in the 8- to 10-mile range. Slow trolled cigar minnows near structure or live bottom should produce some strikes if the fish are near. Bottom fishing for grouper and other assorted bottom fish has been good starting around 20 miles out but anglers are reporting there are lots of sharks to contend with the closer to the beach you fish.  Â
