Outfished Again

FAANangler wrote:I must be getting old, because these summertime fishing trips seem to get more brutal each time I that I go. Chris Hall and I hastily planned a trip to Southport, this week, after learning of availability of room at the local Wingate Inn. The weather reports were indicating temperatures at around 80 degrees with light Southwest Winds and 2 -3 ft. seas. So, we booked the room and a slip at the Southport Marina and eagerly waited for our time on the water.

We arrived at the marina around 8:30am on Saturday, launched the boat and headed upriver to an area that I started fishing a couple of years. Once we set the down from plane, it wasn't long before we started catching fish. Or at least, Chris was catching fish by catching a speckled trout and then a nice flounder. We caught several short fish that morning using gulp swim baits. We also tried soaking some live shrimp under poppin corks, but we didn’t have as much luck with that as anticipated.

Sound like a good trip regardless of the amount of fish caught seems like you'll had fun. That was a good write up Tom. You have what it takes to be a sports writer.



After the tide had dropped out, we thought that we would head outside and try trolling for some Spanish then work our way to Yaupon reef. At the inlet, found that the waves were rolling pretty strong and were white capping further out. We listened to the radio for a while and heard reports of 3 ft. seas that would have produced an uncomfortable, but not a completely unsafe ride. However, we elected not to risk it and headed back to the marina to take a break and to get checked in to our hotel.

In the evening, we moved to Dutchman Creek to fish the rising tide, which was a more productive time for us than the falling tide. We caught a couple of specks that evening and enjoyed fishing the setting sun.

On Sunday, we were on the water just after first light and headed back upriver. I decided to try casting some top water lured. Though it didn’t produce any fish for the box, it did provide quite a bit of excitement, as fish blew up that the baits and even completely leaped over the bait as they struck at it.

The top water action lasted until about 9:00 am and back to Gulp and the search for redfish. The marsh was almost completely flooded by this time and we started looking for tails. As we eased around on the slack tide, we found as area with a few fish that we could cast into. I think Chris must have thrown right to the fish, because he hooked up immediately and the concern turned to getting the fish out of the grass where we could land him. Fortunately, the fish cooperated and Chris landed a nice 21” slot fish which was his goal when we started. We spend the next couple of hours searching for more redfish working, but we didn’t see as many as we had hoped and those that we did where outside of casting range. Even with a cooler full of water and consumed, by about 1:00pm the heat and humidity had pretty much dehydrated us both, so we decided to head back to Fayetteville.



On a final note, I used my stick pin for the first time on this trip and found it to be as handy as a shirt pocket for this type of fishing. I kept it on the front deck behind the trolling motor tied to one of the cleats with a short deck line. When we found an area that we wanted to concentrate on it was a simple matter of picking up the pin and spearing it into the mud and we were anchored. There was no going into the anchoring locker clanging chain around and making a huge fish frightening splash. I was really surprised at how well it held the boat and how easily it was recovered. I highly recommend that you get one when fishing inshore.

We were a little surprised by this character showing up in the marsh. Do you know what it is?