A piece of shrimp or finger mullet is enough to tempt even lethargic drum to clean the dinner plate in December in the Surf City/Topsail area.
It was typical winter morning, with a bite to the breeze that made even weatherworn Capt. David Baxley cinch down his acrylic headgear and pull up the hood of his sweatshirt like a scarf. Launching from a ramp in Surf City was a snap because it was in a protected area, but when Baxley headed south along the Intracoastal Waterway, the wind chilling a forehead brought on a brain freeze as easily as a snow cone during the summer. Hunkering down behind the windshield, he jammed the throttle down even more.
“This way, we’ll be out of the wind and warmed up faster,” he said. “Hang on to your hat.”
Minutes later, Baxley and his wife, Tammy, who operate Headhunter Outdoors out of Topsail Beach, turned out of the ICW and out of the wind into a small creek. The result was an instantaneous feeling of warmth as soon as the live oaks, homes and bulkheads lining the bank defeated the wind.
“All of the creeks off the ICW near Topsail Island hold tons of red drum and black drum this time of year,” he said. “Nobody else fishes them, but the fishing is absolutely on fire, even in the dregs of December. The cold water forces the fish into the smaller, deeper places like this, and they are very easy for anyone to find.”
Baxley said that dredged channels hold the most drum, including Harbour Village Marina, Olde Point Creek and all of the other creeks that are lined with houses, bulkheads and boat docks.
Slowing down, he slipped up the creek, then turned away from the oyster-filled flats lined with beds of waving grass. The flats held exposed bars cut through with tiny tidal rivulets, places where few boaters could navigate on such a low tide stage.
“The trick is to find the deeper places like this one,” he said. “You can fish the dredged channels on any tide; the fish will be anywhere with dark water and a dark bottom. The dark bottom absorbs the sun’s heat and warms the water above it. The fish turn on as the sun gets higher, so some of the best fishing is right in the middle of the day. It’s warmer back here for the fishermen then, too.”
David said the best fishing is from two hours before to two hours after low tide. That is when the fish have to leave the marsh for deeper places.
“From the bottom of the tide up about halfway is best because that’s when the water is the warmest,” he said. “When it gets higher than that, all the influx of ocean water cools everything back down. The fish may move out onto the flats or stay in the holes, but they grow lethargic because of the colder temperatures. That’s when you might spot the big schools, hovering out in the marsh that just won’t bite.”
David anchored in the center of a channel where his depth-finder read six feet and where he could easily cast to both banks. He pointed out all of the structure that would attract drum: the floating platforms of the boat docks, boat lifts and bulkheads. Others were not so visible.
“See that bulkhead without a dock for a long way along it?” he asked. “Look down in the water and you can see all the oyster shells poking up. Farther along, there is a sand bar. The reason there is not a dock there is because the water is too shallow. But the oyster bed and sandbar will warm up fast, and the fish will go right to those places.”
Baxley cut a frozen shrimp into two halves and stuck half on a Carolina rig that he cast to the edge of the oysters. He did the same with several other lines, until he had covered man-made and natural structure in all directions.
Soon, one of the baits struck piscatorial pay dirt in the form of a red drum. The fish was a half-inch shy of the minimum legal length of 18 inches.
“We will probably catch 40 to 80 fish today,” he said. “Several of our red drum will be in the slot limit of 18 to 27 inches, but most of them will be undersized. I do have days when this tiny creek is filled with 30-inch reds. They are over the slot limit but put up quite a fight on light tackle. Once in a while, you might see a big fish pushing water if some bait moves through. They are not going to expend a lot of energy unless it is in going after something that is worth the effort. It’s something you want to be on the lookout for, because when that happens, you are going to have some best winter fishing around. The fish are starving because the bait has left the creeks, so they will eat anything that swims by, or that you cast in front of them.”
Baxley next caught a black drum weighing about two pounds, and he tossed it into his ice chest, noting that anglers could catch all the black they wanted to eat.
“Black drum in the creeks run from about a pound to six pounds,” he said. “If you want something to take home, I would highly recommend them. They are good-eating fish.”
Baxley soon homed in on the hot spots where the fish were biting. Strikes came so quickly he could keep only one rod in the water at a time for 30 minutes before the bite stopped. When he pulled in the lines, he took off his coveralls.
“You start out in coveralls and wind up in a sweat shirt,” he said. “The fish like it back in here because it’s warm, and so do I.”
Tammy Baxley has been accompanying her husband for years, learning the tricks of the trade. She has had her captain’s license for two years.
“Sometimes David can’t go because he’s duck hunting or doing something else, and I take the boat,” she said. “I really enjoy it, especially when there are families with children aboard. Winter is a great time to take kids because of the holidays. There are always stretches of nicer weather, and everyone has cabin fever. There are no bugs, and it’s not unbearably hot, which are reasons why some kids don’t take well to fishing in the summer.”
She said that in addition to shrimp, other baits and lures work well. She uses a lot of finger mullet that she either buys or -catches and freezes herself.
“You have to thaw frozen baits out before the trip because the water may be too cold to thaw them,” she said. “I thaw the mullet enough to bend them and make them supple. Then I hook them on a Carolina rig and fish them so they are facing into the current. The current makes the mullet move back and forth as though they are swimming, and no predatory fish can resist such a tempting target in winter.”
Tammy Baxley usually fishes with six rods. However, if the fish aren’t in the usual places, she goes prospecting with a Gulp! Swimming Mullet.
“I like a chartreuse curlytail on a ¼-ounce jig,” she said. “Red drum hit it, and black drum will, too. Once you find the fish, you can switch to mullet or shrimp; black drum will eat the shrimp the best. The red drum are usually at the structure along the sides of the channels, and the black drum tend to stick more in the deeper holes. When the tide comes up, the red drum head back out into the marshes, but the black drum are homebodies and will stay in the same holes they were in at low tide.”
After catching dozens of fish, David fired the engine and headed for another that was lined with even higher banks and split off into a network of small canals. He headed upstream until the water trickled down to an impassable ditch
“I just wanted to show you this, to prove the fish can be anywhere there is a dredged channel,” he said.
His first cast resulted in a fish. After that, the action was non-stop.
“You don’t have to deal with the bait stealers here like you would in the summer,” he said. “You can hardly fish this spot with bait in warmer weather.”
A homeowner came out and watched the action for a few minutes. Then he moved in for a closer look.
“I didn’t know there were any fish that big in this little creek in winter,” he said. “Maybe I should get you to take me fishing.”
“It’s some of the best fishing of the year,” said Baxley, smiling and nodding as he gave a convert and prospective client his cell-phone number.
DESTINATION INFORMATION
HOW TO GET THERE/WHEN TO GO — The Surf City Boating Access Area is at 517 Roland Ave., in Surf City, which can be accessed from Jacksonville via NC 50. From Raleigh, take I 50 to NC 53 east toward Jacksonville.
WHEN TO GO — Red and black drum are in the area all year, but they provide great action when other species are not biting from December through March.
BEST BAITS/LURES — Shrimp and finger mullet fished on Carolina rigs are the norm. For artificials, a chartreuse Gulp! Swimming Mullet fished on a ¼-ounce jighead works well.
FISHING INFO/GUIDES — Capt. David Baxley, Capt. Tammy Baxley, Headhunter Outdoors, 910-329-0818; East Coast Sports, Surf City, 910-328-1887, www.eastcoastsports.com; New River Marina, Sneads Ferry, 910-327-2106, www.newrivermarina.com. See also Guides and Charters in Classifieds.
ACCOMMODATIONS — St. Regis Resort, N. Topsail Beach, 800-497-5463; Greater Topsail Chamber of Commerce, 910.329.4446, www.topsailchamber.org.
MAPS — Capt. Segull’s Nautical Charts, 888-473-4855, www.captainsegullcharts.com; Sealake Fishing Guides, 800-411-0185, www.thegoodspots.com; GMCO Chartbook of North Carolina, 888-420-6277, www.gmcomaps.com.
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