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My plan: Leave Raleigh 7:30 PM on Thursday, hit Surf City pier ~10 PM to catch some sea mullet and croaker for cut bait and then for try for drum until 1 AM. Up at 6 AM to plug for bluefish until 10 AM. Then move to the beach to soak baits, drink beers and chillax. Hit pier for more plugging at dusk if AM plugging sucked.
Monkey wrench: Despite making mental plans to head out about 5 days earlier, my gear prep was lagging behind. I was running late with my departure and half way through my drive down I realized I forgot to pack my plano of plugs and metal and other terminal gear. I did have some back-ups, but not my Plan A gear.
How it went down: Started fishing about 10:30 PM. First cast double hook-up of sea mullet on crab flavored FBs. Second cast a croaker. Nothing the rest of the night and lost both 2/0 circle hook rigs to snags. Starting plugging and jigging with straw rigs at 6:15 AM. Blues and juvenile spanish were around, but I managed just a couple of blues and lost a few. Was thinking about heading to the beach early, but I saw a few keeper spanish come over the rails and decided to stick it out for a little while longer. Then the bait fish showed up - and it was on with the keeper-sized spanish on the south side of the pier! Folks were doing OK with the white Gotchas, but gold hook rigs with gold diamond jigs were killing it. Then the blues were hitting hard on the north side of the pier - gold and silver diamond jigs do most of the damage. There some schools of crevalle jack hitting under the bait fish, too. Things cooled down with the fishing > 2 PM when the water got murky. I never made it to the surf. I did see a ribbonfish caught before I left ~ 4 PM.
Tally: ~$40 lost in gear, 6 keeper spanish (largest was 18" FL), tired arms, sore back and an itch to do it again soon.
-KBueno
Monkey wrench: Despite making mental plans to head out about 5 days earlier, my gear prep was lagging behind. I was running late with my departure and half way through my drive down I realized I forgot to pack my plano of plugs and metal and other terminal gear. I did have some back-ups, but not my Plan A gear.
How it went down: Started fishing about 10:30 PM. First cast double hook-up of sea mullet on crab flavored FBs. Second cast a croaker. Nothing the rest of the night and lost both 2/0 circle hook rigs to snags. Starting plugging and jigging with straw rigs at 6:15 AM. Blues and juvenile spanish were around, but I managed just a couple of blues and lost a few. Was thinking about heading to the beach early, but I saw a few keeper spanish come over the rails and decided to stick it out for a little while longer. Then the bait fish showed up - and it was on with the keeper-sized spanish on the south side of the pier! Folks were doing OK with the white Gotchas, but gold hook rigs with gold diamond jigs were killing it. Then the blues were hitting hard on the north side of the pier - gold and silver diamond jigs do most of the damage. There some schools of crevalle jack hitting under the bait fish, too. Things cooled down with the fishing > 2 PM when the water got murky. I never made it to the surf. I did see a ribbonfish caught before I left ~ 4 PM.
Tally: ~$40 lost in gear, 6 keeper spanish (largest was 18" FL), tired arms, sore back and an itch to do it again soon.
-KBueno
