Bottom-fishing along the North Carolina coast isn’t just a summertime activity. Fall action can be excellent, according to one Southport captain.
Like many North Carolina charterboat captains, Butch Foster of Southport migrated to the coast from inland after spending many vacations there, finally deciding to make it his permanent home.
Foster is “old school,” a jack of all trades who grew up the hard way, dropping out of high school, battling a debilitating disease from his youth, working as a truck driver, furniture factory worker, taxidermist and at a textile mill.
At the textile plant, Frank IX & Sons, Foster was tinkering with a machine that was wearing out and that no one, not even college-educated engineers, had been able to address successfully. Foster designed and created a new part for a weaving loom that solved the problem, and he had it patented. The income from that patent, now used at most textile mills in the United States, allowed Foster to retire and move to Southport 20 years ago, where he started a charterboat business.
“My son, Chris, who was born in 1986, loved saltwater fishing as much as me, and we decided to move to the coast, buy a boat and start a charter business,” Foster said. “I’d be the captain, and he’d be my mate.”
Once established, Foster instituted a policy that if his parties didn’t catch fish, the trip was free — something he rarely has to do. If you had to place a wager on a Southport captain in a bottom-fishing contest, you’d be hard-pressed to make a better choice than Foster, who catches grouper, black sea bass, vermillion snapper, grunts — you name it — aboard the Yeah Right II, his 34-foot Chris Craft. He also takes fishermen on trips targeting Spanish mackerel, king mackerel, sharks and flounder, but when he leaves South Harbor Marina near Southport, his real forté is bottom-fishing.
“I’ve got hundreds of spots marked,” he said. “It’s just mainly a matter of moving from one spot to the next to find the species that you want to catch.”
Because Foster is going to put his anglers on reef fish, his excursions, which can range out to 60 miles, only have one variable — weather.
“Safety always is a big concern for me,” he said. “You don’t want to be out on the ocean when it’s too rough. Not only is it not safe, but customers don’t want to get seasick. When you’re going that far, you don’t want to do it against heavy seas.”
Offshore fishing for reef species generally becomes heated during late May and lasts throughout the year, but late summer and early fall are particularly good — if the weather cooperates. September and October is hurricane season along the coast, and it doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing when a ’cane is brewing. However, late September and early October is when bottom-fishing weather is often perfect.
One “repeat customer” of Foster’s is James “Skeeter” Midgette Sr. of Winnabow. On a recent outing with Foster, Midgette climbed aboard the Yeah Right II along with his son, James Midgette Jr., and Marissa Reeves of Wilmington.
“The first time Skeeter went with me, he caught 300 pounds of fish,” Foster said. “I guess that convinced him to come back.”
When the Yeah Right II cleared the mouth of the Cape Fear River west of Bald Head Island, Foster pointed the prow south, dropped the throttle and his twin Cummins turbo diesels began to growl at the start of a ride that would end 42 miles offshore at the Navy Wreck, 25 miles south of the Frying Pan Tower.
Mate Josh Richardson, 21, a native of Ringgold, Va., who has been working charterboats since he was 16 years old, prepared the baits (squid wings and frozen cigar minnows) on 6½-foot Penn rods, Innovative Reel Technologies reels, 100-pound monofilament line with 100-pound fluorocarbon leaders, 10-ounce bank sinkers fitted with two dropper lines above and 10/0 circle hooks — circle hooks now being mandatory for all bottom-fishing.
The first place Foster stopped — a few hundred yards shy of the Navy Wreck — produced impressive black sea bass, hauled from the bottom about 110 feet below the keel. Normally these fish weigh from 1 to 1½ pounds, but the Midgettes and Reeves landed singles and doubles, 2- and 3-pound lunker sea bass.
After catching their fill of “knotheads,” Foster decided to try for something larger and motored to the Navy Wreck where the clear water produced views of dark, silvery fish milling around 25 feet below the surface, along with cobia cruising on top.
Richardson grabbed a rod and reel with a Stingsilver casting spoon tied on and cast it toward one of the circling fish, which struck savagely. He handed the bowed rod to the younger Midgette.
After several line-singing runs, Midgette landed his first amberjack, a 20-pounder. He grinned widely after Richardson released the fish, then it was back to amberjack catching.
A problem with his anchor winch helped Foster decide to drift over some hardbottom spots he thought might hold grouper.
At one spot, the Midgettes landed undersize (less than 24 inches) but beautiful, gray-and-black mottled gags along with more sea bass, which were released after Richardson punctured their air bladders.
“I’m wanting us to catch a nice red grouper, so we’re going to try one more spot,” Foster said.
After a 10-minute glide across the calm sea, he put the Yeah Right II in position and began a slow drift across a likely hardbottom. The tip of Skeeter Midgette’s rod bounced once, and Midgette set the hook, engaging the motor on one of Anthony Ng’s Precision Electric reels.
“I think it’s something big,” he said as the rod formed a “C,” almost touching the water line.
“You got to go easy on that fish or you’ll break line or maybe the rod; the reel ain’t gonna break,” Foster said.
After a 5-minute battle, during which the reel screeched in protest several times as the fish dove for the bottom, Midgette’s hauled the big grouper to the surface, where Richardson gaffed it and pulled it over the side.
“That is the biggest red grouper I’ve ever seen caught in person,” Foster said. “It might be a state record.”
Foster wasn’t too far off in his estimation. Midgette’s red grouper weighed exactly 30 pounds, 3½ pounds shy of the state record, when weighed officially at Oak Island Pier.
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