Nice job thanks for posting.
topsail 8/14 - 8/21
down for our annual family trip to topsail...brought the rods down as usual. shame what has happened to this island...renourished from one end of the island to the other over the past several years and no fleas to be found along the entire length...i know as i walked every single one of my "usual" places in N topsail, surf city, and S topsail...places that used to be teeming with life in the surf and covered with fleas are now completely dead. found 3 total fleas the entire week. fishing, predictably, is terrible compared to what it was 10y ago.
mostly playing with the 4 kids the first half of the week, second half the water cleared up and the pomp fluoro rigs/circles came out to play. managed 1 citation (2.25 lbs) and 6 fish around 1 to 1.5 lbs in 2 days. almost a "slot" mullet as well, 17". some undersize rat reds on cut bait, few 2-3 lb blues on cut bait, all the 1lb whiting you want, many puffers. waved my 8wt & clouser minnow around the ICW @ south inlet for an hour or so and managed several giant lizard fish, always fun to get any kind of pullage on the fly rod. one day it was dead calm with gin clear water in the AM and could see the small pomps coming in behind the wave to chase fleas and then tailing back out with the receding wave, threw my streamers at them for an hour trying to get my poor man's permit on the fly rod but wasn't happening, need some shrimp/crab patterns I guess.
bottom line, i can never catch large #s of citation pomps without sand fleas. hope they come back soon. would not come here for a strictly surf fishing trip for a while. if you just want to catch meat it can be done, SMALL circles (sz 6 mutu light or size 2 eagle claw L197s) and the fishbites flavor of choice...
![Fish Fish]()
mostly playing with the 4 kids the first half of the week, second half the water cleared up and the pomp fluoro rigs/circles came out to play. managed 1 citation (2.25 lbs) and 6 fish around 1 to 1.5 lbs in 2 days. almost a "slot" mullet as well, 17". some undersize rat reds on cut bait, few 2-3 lb blues on cut bait, all the 1lb whiting you want, many puffers. waved my 8wt & clouser minnow around the ICW @ south inlet for an hour or so and managed several giant lizard fish, always fun to get any kind of pullage on the fly rod. one day it was dead calm with gin clear water in the AM and could see the small pomps coming in behind the wave to chase fleas and then tailing back out with the receding wave, threw my streamers at them for an hour trying to get my poor man's permit on the fly rod but wasn't happening, need some shrimp/crab patterns I guess.
bottom line, i can never catch large #s of citation pomps without sand fleas. hope they come back soon. would not come here for a strictly surf fishing trip for a while. if you just want to catch meat it can be done, SMALL circles (sz 6 mutu light or size 2 eagle claw L197s) and the fishbites flavor of choice...
