Offshore Fishing
Catch-and-release dolphin? Really?
Catching a dolphin and releasing it may sound like sheer lunacy to some bluewater anglers, but there is a sound reason to let a few go each year.
Fishing
Inshore Fishing
Understand a speckled trout’s circle of life and catch more fish
While most of you are humming that song from “The Lion King”, the circle of life for speckled trout begins in South Carolina marshes when two environmental factors signal mature trout that it’s time to get busy.
Offshore Fishing
Dolphin grow fast, die young and taste good
Few organisms in the ocean can match the fast life cycle of the dolphin fish, coryphaena hippurus. Dolphin reach sexual maturity at four to five months, where it takes a king mackerel three years to spawn. The world-record dolphin, 87 pounds was believed to be slightly less than five years old. By comparison, the world-record king mackerel, a 93-pound fish, was thought to be closer to 25 years old.
Offshore Fishing
Rigging a Dink Ballyhoo
1) Using a thawed, small/medium, high-quality ballyhoo, remove the bait’s eyes with an arrow shaft.
2) Use cutting pliers to remove the bait’s pectoral fins.
Inshore Fishing
Quick thinking leads to more cobia hookups
May and June offer great opportunities for fishermen who dream of hooking up with a powerhouse, 50-pound cobia just off the beach. But anglers must act fast if they want to get a hookup, because no matter how lazy these fish appear when cruising along the surface, they become less and less catchable every minute a boat is on the scene.
Inshore Fishing
Don’t count on finding cobia in the same spots every day this month
Guide Jot Owens begins seeing cobia off Wrightsville Beach in May, and on a typical day, he will head to the Masonboro Inlet jetties first thing early in the morning and then start running the beach looking for pods of bait and free-swimming cobia. But he can never count on them being in the same place day after day.
Inshore Fishing
Big 2015 cobia catch hurts 2016 season
Because 2015 was such a fruitful year for North Carolina cobia fishermen, they’ll have a big payback to make in 2016.
Freshwater Fishing
How to target the biggest bedding bream
When you find a group of bream beds, the fishing can be fast. If you’re catching a mixture of small and big fish, angler Josh Devlin has a tip for targeting bigger ones.
Freshwater Fishing
Take care not to fish out a bream bed
Veteran angler Josh Devlin of Florence said bream beds are easy to find on the Little Pee Dee River, and while he enjoys pulling out one bream after the other, he also makes sure not to fish them too hard.
Featured
Angler catches huge cobia out of Hatteras
Blake Michael of Poquoson, Va., knew he was headed to Hatteras earlier this week for the catch of a lifetime, but he didn’t know it would be a doubleheader. Fishing with his buddy, Bryan Nester, this past Thursday, a few days before marrying his “catch-of-a-lifetime” girlfriend, Hailey Hill, Michael landed a 116.2-pound cobia, missing the state record by slightly more than four ounces.