Nickajack Angler
Well-known member
Nickajack Angler, Topsail Island, NC Final Day, Blues, Flounder and Speckled Trout, 11/8/08, Dad and
We had a planned guided trip to the gulf stream today (Saturday) but after a LONG conversation with Dad (aka - Big Chicken) we decided to take up a neighbors offer of a day in the ICW hunting some decent sized speckled trout and hopefully some reds. Dad was very uncomfortable going out on the ocean with a guy in a 29ft boat, twin 150's - that we had never met - have no knowledge of him or what he's about.... then ride out two hours (67 mi) from shore to the gulf stream and fish ALL DAY, then ride 2 hrs back. Dad recounted fishing with EricM in front of a nuclear power plant "and this ain't the same thing son...." I was ready to go, but the more he talked, the more he was making sense. I've had too many great fishing experiences with guys on CFF that I have never met to not want to go. Then Dad said "Son, you are going to go out there, sit in a spot, drop down a lure in really deep water and PRAY! It's really boring!!! Let's go fish and experience the Inner Coastal Waterway with a neighbor that we will fish with again." So we did.
We awoke at 5:30am, had a couple of cups of coffee and helped the other three guys pack their truck to head home. It's always a very sad experience to say goodbye, knowing our trip is comiing to an end. They were OUT in a hurry and I was rigging up my red 1/4 oz jighead for the day. Dad was putzin' around so I drove the block to the end of our canal to hit the outgoing tide early and told him to come on when he was done putzin'. A time that was missed each day while there due to the old guys wanting to go have breakfast and sit around drinking coffee until 8am or so... it drove me nuts!
It was beautiful watching the sun come up and see the dolphins swimming through the ICW within 40 yards of me - about 20 of them. It's amazing how large they are up close. You could hear their breathing at each surface breach and I was in utter amazment and felt it was heaven, alone on the seawall. The temps were in the 50's at first light and I could feel my black jacket heat up quickly. Within 10 minutes I had four hookups that came off before I could even see what it was. I just knew it was going to be a great day from all the bait fish I could see busting the top and along the wall. Four more pogy's gone... I'm so glad I bought a bucket of those for the trip. I knew I only had about 3 or 4 left. Then Mike, our neighbor came tooling around the seawall out of our canal, saying "I knew I'd find you here..." I jumped in the car and found Dad walking down the street, already half way there, with rod in hand. We jumped in Mike's 21 ft bay boat and were off. Now, Mike is not an accomplished saltwater fisherman. He's a businessman who owns a house down there. He has fished his whole life for bass, much like all of us, but has only been down here for four years. He looked at us and said "Okay, where do we go?" Dad and I looked at him and said "I dunno????" Mike stopped the boat and said "I thought you guys were going to teach me something today!?!?!?!!?" Dad said, "We are, but you'll have to take us to where the fish are, we don't get out here much.... we come here and do 'vacation fishing'!" Mike said he wasn't very knowlegeable either and asked where we'd like to go. I told him to just go to where community holes, where he usually sees people fishing. He knew what I was talking about and we took a ride to search for some areas. There are so many creeks and tidal areas that I wanted to try for some finning reds that I've read so much about, but we didn't have live bait and decided to stick to main ICW channel ledges where the current was prominent. As we got to the south tip of the island, Mike started pointing out places where the channel cuts really close to shore and I could see the sand bars in the blue water. I finally pointed out a scooped/bowled out area between 2 creeks with from tidal areas that were pouring into the channel. Each creek had a nice, long point/sand bar on the ocean side, we anchored on the shore inbetween these two points on a break from 7ft to 22ft. We were within 500 yds of the inlet mouth to the Atlantic. We threw the anchor up on the shore, let out some rope and from then on it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!!!! We sat on that spot for over 4 hrs, catching fish just about every cast. Blues and Speckled trout mostly with an occasional Black bass and flounder. We found that white was the color as Dad was throwing chartruese, Mike a Black/silver/orange MirroLure with no success. I had on the Mackeral colored Gulp Pogy - which is mostly white with a black back on the same red head 1/4 oz jig. They didn't last long, for everything in the water here has teeth and big ones too. The blues have a HARD bite and will bite even more so when they are out of water with your finger or bait in their face, as all three of us found out. Each of us have some cuts on our hands. It's a hard habit to not stick your fingers in their mouth to retrieve your lure. My pogy's were gone and I had to fall back on the quart of natural shrimp in 3 in that were the same color. That didn't even slow the bite down. You could hop the jig off the bottom and let the current drag it out, falling back into the fishes face. But when it got furious, you just threw it out and started reeling. Doing the "palsy twitch" that DK refers to so often.
We fished until the tide went all the way out and then back in. Rode up through some creeks and into some areas that I begged to find some reds, but there were boats everywhere in every little creek channel we passed. This place really fills up on the weekend. It looked like Chick does when there are three dogfights/tx's on it at once, after a week of having the island to ourselves. Everyone was catching fish. It was by far one of the best days of fishing I've ever had in my life as far as numbers. We didn't catch anything larger than 4 or 5lbs and many times didn't even take pictures due to wanting to get back out and into them. First time this week we caught keeper sized trout and one time while I was helping Dad get his jighead out of a blues mouth, I laid my rod down with my shrimp still out, but right under the boat. When I went to pick it up, I had on about a 3 or 4lb flounder that inhaled my bait. Ruined the only jighead I had used the entire week digging it out with a pair of pliers. I took some pictures that will show what type of area we were in, and tried to show how people started lining up along by us when they rode by and saw us all three hooked up. Then the kayakers (there were many) that row out to the uninhabited islands and pull up to fish from shore in the surf. Supposedly there are more fish over there away from weekend warriors and tourists. But they were hanging out by us after a while. We just got on a point that was where the fish came in from the ocean to feed and we were lucky enough to be on it. We tried to catch them all. We figured we caught over 300 fish between the three of us in the first 4 hrs. About 4 or 5 fish per shrimp, and there were 50 in that bucket. We had 5 or so left when we left. What a great trip and a great week with my Dad. I love going. Cannot wait until next year. And I really can't wait until the boys are finally able to go. Hope you enjoy the pics. Sorry about the long post, but I'm blown away by the final day we had. Really glad we didn't go out deep. I would have missed this....
We had a planned guided trip to the gulf stream today (Saturday) but after a LONG conversation with Dad (aka - Big Chicken) we decided to take up a neighbors offer of a day in the ICW hunting some decent sized speckled trout and hopefully some reds. Dad was very uncomfortable going out on the ocean with a guy in a 29ft boat, twin 150's - that we had never met - have no knowledge of him or what he's about.... then ride out two hours (67 mi) from shore to the gulf stream and fish ALL DAY, then ride 2 hrs back. Dad recounted fishing with EricM in front of a nuclear power plant "and this ain't the same thing son...." I was ready to go, but the more he talked, the more he was making sense. I've had too many great fishing experiences with guys on CFF that I have never met to not want to go. Then Dad said "Son, you are going to go out there, sit in a spot, drop down a lure in really deep water and PRAY! It's really boring!!! Let's go fish and experience the Inner Coastal Waterway with a neighbor that we will fish with again." So we did.
We awoke at 5:30am, had a couple of cups of coffee and helped the other three guys pack their truck to head home. It's always a very sad experience to say goodbye, knowing our trip is comiing to an end. They were OUT in a hurry and I was rigging up my red 1/4 oz jighead for the day. Dad was putzin' around so I drove the block to the end of our canal to hit the outgoing tide early and told him to come on when he was done putzin'. A time that was missed each day while there due to the old guys wanting to go have breakfast and sit around drinking coffee until 8am or so... it drove me nuts!
It was beautiful watching the sun come up and see the dolphins swimming through the ICW within 40 yards of me - about 20 of them. It's amazing how large they are up close. You could hear their breathing at each surface breach and I was in utter amazment and felt it was heaven, alone on the seawall. The temps were in the 50's at first light and I could feel my black jacket heat up quickly. Within 10 minutes I had four hookups that came off before I could even see what it was. I just knew it was going to be a great day from all the bait fish I could see busting the top and along the wall. Four more pogy's gone... I'm so glad I bought a bucket of those for the trip. I knew I only had about 3 or 4 left. Then Mike, our neighbor came tooling around the seawall out of our canal, saying "I knew I'd find you here..." I jumped in the car and found Dad walking down the street, already half way there, with rod in hand. We jumped in Mike's 21 ft bay boat and were off. Now, Mike is not an accomplished saltwater fisherman. He's a businessman who owns a house down there. He has fished his whole life for bass, much like all of us, but has only been down here for four years. He looked at us and said "Okay, where do we go?" Dad and I looked at him and said "I dunno????" Mike stopped the boat and said "I thought you guys were going to teach me something today!?!?!?!!?" Dad said, "We are, but you'll have to take us to where the fish are, we don't get out here much.... we come here and do 'vacation fishing'!" Mike said he wasn't very knowlegeable either and asked where we'd like to go. I told him to just go to where community holes, where he usually sees people fishing. He knew what I was talking about and we took a ride to search for some areas. There are so many creeks and tidal areas that I wanted to try for some finning reds that I've read so much about, but we didn't have live bait and decided to stick to main ICW channel ledges where the current was prominent. As we got to the south tip of the island, Mike started pointing out places where the channel cuts really close to shore and I could see the sand bars in the blue water. I finally pointed out a scooped/bowled out area between 2 creeks with from tidal areas that were pouring into the channel. Each creek had a nice, long point/sand bar on the ocean side, we anchored on the shore inbetween these two points on a break from 7ft to 22ft. We were within 500 yds of the inlet mouth to the Atlantic. We threw the anchor up on the shore, let out some rope and from then on it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!!!! We sat on that spot for over 4 hrs, catching fish just about every cast. Blues and Speckled trout mostly with an occasional Black bass and flounder. We found that white was the color as Dad was throwing chartruese, Mike a Black/silver/orange MirroLure with no success. I had on the Mackeral colored Gulp Pogy - which is mostly white with a black back on the same red head 1/4 oz jig. They didn't last long, for everything in the water here has teeth and big ones too. The blues have a HARD bite and will bite even more so when they are out of water with your finger or bait in their face, as all three of us found out. Each of us have some cuts on our hands. It's a hard habit to not stick your fingers in their mouth to retrieve your lure. My pogy's were gone and I had to fall back on the quart of natural shrimp in 3 in that were the same color. That didn't even slow the bite down. You could hop the jig off the bottom and let the current drag it out, falling back into the fishes face. But when it got furious, you just threw it out and started reeling. Doing the "palsy twitch" that DK refers to so often.
We fished until the tide went all the way out and then back in. Rode up through some creeks and into some areas that I begged to find some reds, but there were boats everywhere in every little creek channel we passed. This place really fills up on the weekend. It looked like Chick does when there are three dogfights/tx's on it at once, after a week of having the island to ourselves. Everyone was catching fish. It was by far one of the best days of fishing I've ever had in my life as far as numbers. We didn't catch anything larger than 4 or 5lbs and many times didn't even take pictures due to wanting to get back out and into them. First time this week we caught keeper sized trout and one time while I was helping Dad get his jighead out of a blues mouth, I laid my rod down with my shrimp still out, but right under the boat. When I went to pick it up, I had on about a 3 or 4lb flounder that inhaled my bait. Ruined the only jighead I had used the entire week digging it out with a pair of pliers. I took some pictures that will show what type of area we were in, and tried to show how people started lining up along by us when they rode by and saw us all three hooked up. Then the kayakers (there were many) that row out to the uninhabited islands and pull up to fish from shore in the surf. Supposedly there are more fish over there away from weekend warriors and tourists. But they were hanging out by us after a while. We just got on a point that was where the fish came in from the ocean to feed and we were lucky enough to be on it. We tried to catch them all. We figured we caught over 300 fish between the three of us in the first 4 hrs. About 4 or 5 fish per shrimp, and there were 50 in that bucket. We had 5 or so left when we left. What a great trip and a great week with my Dad. I love going. Cannot wait until next year. And I really can't wait until the boys are finally able to go. Hope you enjoy the pics. Sorry about the long post, but I'm blown away by the final day we had. Really glad we didn't go out deep. I would have missed this....
