Drum Up a Bite

Perseverance, scouting and correct tackle are keys to finding Outer Banks redfish in the surf.

At 3:30 a.m. on a Friday in late October, Mike Frick napped in a canvas camp chair whose legs dug deep into the sand beside his Ford F-250 pickup truck.

Overhead pinpoints of light dotted a canopy of black velvet — almost three hours before the sun began to brighten the eastern horizon.

Although no wind stirred and the only sounds were the hisses of spent waves retreating back to the ocean, Frick, 59, didn’t allow his mind to drift into dreamland. He dozed but kept his ears cocked for the tell-tale clicks from four Daiwa reels.

“I just get cat naps when I’m fishing this tournament,” he said. “I’m half-awake for about three days because I’m here for the duration.”

The event was the N.C. Beach Buggy Association’s Red Drum Tournament, headquartered at Frank & Fran’s tackle shop in Avon.

So Frick was alone at his spot at Ramp 27 south of Salvo, unlike many other competitors who brought friends, wives, children or girlfriends to take turns watching reels through 2½ non-stop days of fishing.

Frick admitted being a little envious, because he almost asked his wife to accompany him from Nashville, Tenn. But his anticipation of rough weather and his son’s recovery from an illness kept her at home.

“Now, this time the (weather) is perfect,” he said, “but my wife still had to stay at home because my son caught a case of Rocky Mountain spotted fever.”

Frick, who’s fished the Outer Banks surf for 25 years, hasn’t missed the annual tournament in 18 Octobers.

He was at his 100 feet of fishing territory from 12:01 a.m. Thursday when the green flag dropped until the checkered flag fell at 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.

Frick proved to be the ironman of the 200 entrants in the Outer Banks’ oldest red drum tournament, landing 15 fish, more than anyone else by a large margin.

“I tripped over this spot Wednesday morning,” he said. “I was scouting and found a slough just out there in front of (the ramp). I came back, fished it and had some luck.”

Nodding at the next set of anglers down the beach, Frick said he knew that if he left his catbird seat he’d never get it back.

“They’d give anything to me to move off this spot, but I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

Frick basically won the tournament’s “most-drum-caught” division with his perseverance and an incredible string of luck at Ramp 27. Between sunup and sundown Thursday, he caught a modest two fish, but between dark and daylight the next morning, he pulled 13 reds from the surf. No one else came close to his proficiency.

Once, during the early morning hours Thursday, Frick was taking a red drum to a judge for measurement when one of his Daiwa reels began screaming. He obviously had some kind of large fish hooked on the business end.

“I had to let the reel go while I took the red I’d caught to the judge,” he said.

By the time he returned, the fish was gone. He could only wonder what he’d missed, because his longest fish of the event measured only 26 inches.

“I don’t have a big secret,” he said, “other than scouting out good places and finding drum in a slough — and I stay at it. When I find a good place, I’ve learned to not go looking for a better one. And this place had that — a cut where the water was running out to the ocean, a sandbar about 100 yards off the beach, and a good current where baitfish were being pulled out.”

Frick’s first experience fishing in the surf came years ago at Daytona Beach, Fla., on a family vacation. One day, he and his son watched surf anglers catch fish.

“My son said, ‘Dad, that looks pretty cool. Can we try it?’” Frick said.

From that point, he was hooked on surf fishing.

“I started investing a lot of time and money in equipment,” he said. “I started with $39 reels, but pretty soon I was up to buying $400 outfits.”

Although some surf anglers like spinning reels, Frick prefers baitcasters. He uses Daiwa X30SHA Sealine Speed Shafts or Abu Garcias with a fast 6-to-1 retrieve ratio.

“I put ceramic bearings in my Abu Garcias to make ’em cast farther,” he said.

His long rods are 13-foot-3 Daiwa SALT 6A Ballistic Surf Hatteras Specials, but he also uses locally-built 11½-foot Rain Shadow rods.

“When I first started, I would buy (baitcasters) and cut the level winds off them so I could cast farther,” he said. “Sometimes, you have to get out there beyond the sand bars.”

Frick said when he first found his special spot at Ramp 27, he noticed a bar at low tide that seemed perfect because it had sloughs on either side.

“Some guys down here can cast 800 yards, but if you can throw (a bait) 100 to 150 yards over a sandbar, you’ll be alright,” he said. “I guess my longest casts now are about 100 yards. I saw the sandbar Wednesday and knew I could cast to it. I don’t know if the people on either side of me could.”

At first, people thought Frick was addled for picking such a spot.

“Nobody likes to sit at the end of a ramp because you get the lights (of vehicles) coming over the ramp at night,” he said.

It’s a maxim of night-fishing that moving lights on the water from vehicles spook fish.

“I don’t think it’s so much the lights as the shadows,” Frick said. “A constant light on the water isn’t a problem, but shadows make (drum) run down the beach; they seem to be trying to run from shadows.”

Still, Frick’s knowledge of where drum are likely to be and ability to cast accurately also help him choose his hot spot.

“The baitfish don’t run directly down the center of a cut, but along the sides,” he said.

Frick said red drum also “run along the tops of the bars.

“I try to put my baits right on top of the sandbar because the fish use it as a highway,” he said. “And the rougher the water, the better.

“I think for drum, rough water stirs up oysters and clams, and that’s what they like to eat. Where you see white water, that’s where the drum usually will be.”

As far as water clarity, it may be important for other species, but not for surf reds.

“Drum don’t care if the water’s dirty,” he said. “I think dirty water actually helps because bait-stealers don’t see the baits as much.”