Fall on Outer Banks is great time for fishing
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By JIM BREWER
For the News & Messenger
Published: October 2, 2008
Last week, Courtney and Pat Craft, along with my wife Nancy and I headed for Nags Head with a stiff nor’easter blowing in our faces. Courtney and I hoped that the fishing would be decent once we arrived, and it was.
In a northeast storm the bottom of the ocean is turned topsy-turvy. That may be bad for those who own waterfront cottages on stilts, but it stirs up the bait and that triggers a feeding frenzy for many game fish. Game fish like puppy drum.
Puppy drum is a term lovingly used by fishermen to describe juvenile red drum, or channel bass. I suppose the cut off point for a puppy drum is about 30-inches. Bigger than that and they are just plain drum. There is a slot limit on puppy drum that allows anglers to creel one fish daily that is at least 18- but not more than 27-inches. The ideal size to catch is 26 7/8, and that is exactly what Courtney hooked up with.
Fishing with Capt. Reese Stecher near the Oregon Inlet Bridge, we had landed several “puppies” just below the slot limit along with several undersized flounder. Courtney had also lost a nice drum at the boat, probably in the 22- to 24-inch category. Then my fishing companion tossed a piece of cut mullet into a shallow eddy and hooked up again. The drag on his Penn reel sang like love stricken tomcat on a Saturday night as Capt. Stecher barked out instructions.
“Hold the rod high,” the Captain yelled. “Keep reeling.”
A channel bass is probably the most powerful saltwater fish of all. They are especially difficult to handle in shallow water, their usual haunts.
I recall hooking a puppy drum in a salt marsh near Yorktown that ripped the treble hooks from the side of my Yazuri plug. They are beasts.
Applying constant pressure, the fish finally came to net and our group from Charlottesville was assured of at least one good seafood meal. Few fish equal a channel bass when it comes to flavor and texture. Channel bass became famous with Chef Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish recipes out of Louisiana.
In a half day trip, we caught a half dozen flounder, four specked trout, eight bluefish and four puppy drum. Reese said when the water cleared, it would be better yet.
Fall, for this angler, is the time to be on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The weather is generally cooperative, assuming the hurricanes have had their fling, and the fish feed heavily before winter arrives.
The month of October – for those fortunate enough to break away – will be outstanding. October is when the big spot head back in the Roanoke Sound to feed. When the spot arrive, the stripers are right are on their heels. Bottom fishing for stripers with live spot beneath the Oregon Inlet Bridge should be red hot by the first of next week. In addition, there are big drum to be caught, and the flounder bite gets better with cooler weather. Larger bluefish also begin showing up in the surf and in the sound. The piers come alive with catches of whiting, specks, puppy drum, bluefish and jumbo spot.
Not only is the fishing good, but the prices for beach rental cottages are at a yearly low by October. We rented at a sound front cottage for about half the cost in season and caught black drum, spot, hogfish and pinfish from our private dock, along with a nice batch of fat, blue crabs. We had hard crabs for appetizers and fried channel bass fillets one evening. Good eating, for sure,
Most of the beaches along the Outer Banks have re-opened to fishing and the blue water boats are returning with good catches of tuna, king mackerel, dolphin and wahoo. The billfish bite, however, is beginning to taper off.
For my money, I prefer booking an inshore charter captain like Reese Stecher. The prices are reasonable and you don’t have to shove off the dock at 4:30 in the morning for a two-hour jaunt out to the Gulf Stream. And you can catch a pile of fish in and around Nags Head. For fishing information, call Capt. Reese Stecher at 252-449-0232 or pull up his web site at http://www.beachbumfishing.com. Fall on the Outer Banks is special. If you can sneak away for a few days, it’s worth the trip. And to heck with the nor’easters.
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