A Cape Fear guide who spends his life on the water helps preserve red drum and turns on other anglers to the state fish of North Carolina.
Capt. Fisher Culbreth is a man who is no stranger to taking risks. A former world champion surfer, the Carolina Beach native knows his water whether it’s shooting the tube of an overhead wave or a shallow backwater inches deep.
“You have to know when to gun the throttle,” he said. “If you stop or slow down, you’ll get stuck on a sand bar in a second.”
Culbreth had launched his boat at the dilapidated N.C. Wildlife Commission’s boating access area at Fort Fisher. A decade of direct hits from hurricanes, and the closing of Corncake Inlet by one of them, had rendered the ramp inaccessible except during the higher tide stages. An angler could launch a boat at low tides, but the channel that once lead to Buzzard Bay, The Basin and the creeks winding through the marshes of Bald Head Island ended at the shoreline.
“You can walk a john boat out, then hop in,” he said. “But if you don’t know where the oyster beds and sand bars are located, you’ll be hopping back out to pull the boat across them when you get stuck.”
Another hazard is a lateral rock jetty called by local anglers “The Cribbing.” It takes off at a perpendicular from “The Rocks,” a jetty that extends parallel to the Cape Fear River channel along the river’s eastern side. The rock jetties were constructed many decades ago to prevent the Cape Fear’s water from running out Corncake Inlet to keep the river’s water flowing between Bald Head Island and Fort Caswell to maintain the navigation channel depth so ships can travel upriver. They worked so well, they most likely caused the eventual closure of Corncake Inlet, which allowed fresh seawater to flush in and out of Buzzard Bay.
“The water keep getting shallower,” Culbreth said. “But I’ve spent so much time down here, I know it better than my own back yard.”
The outboard bogged down as the propeller struck sand a half-dozen times before Culbreth eased back on the throttle. As the outboard’s wake dissipated against the cordgrass lining a tidal creek channel, Culbreth climbed onto a poling platform built above his outboard motor. He pulled on a pair of padded gloves, then picked up a 20-foot fiberglass pole with a T-tip that helped keep it from penetrating the soft bottom so deeply it would become stuck.
Eyeing the water like an eagle, he slowly built up momentum, poling along at about the speed of a tailing red drum.
“The important thing about fishing the lower tide stages is that the low water forces the red drum out of the grass,” he said. “Once they’re out of the grass, they move around in big schools. In March they’re still in a winter pattern, with schools of a dozen to 50 fish sticking together. These are juvenile fish of up to 10 or 12 pounds and a lot of them are much smaller. They become dormant in cold weather, then start moving around a lot more in March. By April the schools start to dissipate, and angler pressure can make them spookier.”
Culbreth approached a crab pot float, poling into the current. On the bow was John Andrews, one of Culbreth’s fishing buddies.
“I lived in Florida for a few years and caught some red drum,” Andrews said. “But I’ve cast to more fish in one day here than I’ve ever seen in Florida. It’s amazing how many fish you can find.”
There are several things that are important to finding a crab pot at the flats. First, crab pots are always set in a channel, or at least a deeper area than the surrounding bottom. A series of crab pots can tell an angler where he can likely pole or use his trolling motor without becoming stuck on a sand bar.
Second, crab pots are loaded with bait for crabs and with crabs. The crabs and the scent of bait both represent food to red drum.
Third, there isn’t much hard structure in a salt marsh at low tide. Anything that breaks the current acts as an attractant to red drum. It can be an old boat hull, oyster bed, pole or piling, or a crab pot. But any anomaly is worth investigating for the presence of red drum.
“There they go,” Andrews said.
He pointed with his rod tip at the bow wakes of large fish departing in water less than 2-feet deep. Left behind were only mud trails, showing where the fish had once been within casting range.
Andrews made a few casts while Culbreth dug his pole into the sand to stabilize the boat against the current flow. He was using a half-dollar-size scent-impregnated soft bait shaped like a crab.
“I like the soft baits, especially the Berkley Gulp Baits,” Culbreth said. “They work so well they make a novice catch fish like an expert. If you get one in front of a red drum, he’s going to eat it.”
After a few fruitless blind casts, Andrews nodded and Culbreth poled onward. He spied a school of fish from his higher vantage point.
“There they are,” he said. “Look, the water is all purple there are so many fish.”
Andrews could see the “nervous” water where the fish beneath the surface created ripples. But it took a few moments before he could see the fish.
Culbreth wears polarized glasses and tries to keep the sun at his back when looking for feeding reds. But the sun was from the wrong direction, making spotting fish from the bow a bit more difficult than from the platform.
“Cast over there,” Culbreth said.
He hopped down from his platform and let the boat drift. Picking up a rod, he cast alongside Andrews.
“I spend so much time poling for my clients, I don’t get to fish much myself,” he said. “This is a fun-fishing trip, though. So I am going to get in on the action.”
The pair of anglers cast to the school with a resulting simultaneous hook-up.
The two redfish did their best to braid the two anglers’ lines as they neared the boat. But the pair passed rods to one another and saved a tangle. Soon a pair of red drum weighing more than 5 pound each emerged from the shallows for a photo before being released.
The action occurred in a small cove, so the commotion made the school move out into the bay. Culbreth used a trolling motor to try to relocate them.
“Depending on the tide stage and the water depth, a trolling motor can be an asset,” he said. “You have to be careful not to grind the propeller against the bottom. The depth can be hard to judge when you are trying to stay in water 2-feet deep, and it has all of these little hills and valleys on the bottom. Grinding the prop will scare off any red drum within 50 yards.”
Once out into the open bay, Andrews dropped anchor. Culbreth spent several minutes scanning the water for fish. He pointed out a school and grabbed his pole while Andrews lifted the anchor.
“When you’re poling, you have to remember that if you push to the right the bow will go left,” Culbreth said. “The boat moves in the opposite direction to the pressure of the pole. It takes a while to get the hang of it and to get your muscles built up for it. But if you’re going to fish the flats effectively, you’re going to have to learn to use a pole.”
These fish had nowhere to hide, but neither did the anglers. However, Culbreth’s approach was stealthy and soon the anglers were within casting range.
Culbreth connected after one cast. This time, the water roiled, churning mud to the top. The fish threatened to scrub the lure from its mouth. But Culbreth kept the rod tip high, forcing the fish off the bottom.
“This one’s big enough to tag,” Andrews said, hoisting the redfish into a net.
Culbreth implanted a yellow “spaghetti” tag into the fish just below the dorsal fin. He measured the fish at 28 inches and estimated its weight at about 11 pounds. He recorded the information on a N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries data sheet, then sent the fish on its way.
“Some years, I’ve tagged more red drum than anyone else in the southeastern part of the state,” he said. “My clients think that tagging their fish is a great part of the fishing experience.
“DMF asks us only to tag adult fish, over 27 inches, which is also over the slot limit size so the fish will be released if it’s caught again. I’ve had some tagged fish re-captured so it proves that catch and release fishing helps save the fish.”
Culbreth doesn’t allow any of his anglers to keep red drum. He catches so many fish from confined areas in the marshes at both sides of the Cape Fear River he said he believes he alone and his clients could wipe out the fish.
“Think about it,” he said. “If I find a school of 40 red drum, and two anglers keep two fish per day out of that school, it’s gone in 10 days. Add to that the fact that the harder you pressure them, the harder they are to catch. Keeping those fish would put me out of business in a hurry.”
While Culbreth used to fish for many other offshore and inshore game fish species, he now fishes almost exclusively for red drum. He still puts his clients onto speckled trout and flounder bites, but red drum are the mainstay of his fishing.
“The red-drum restoration effort along the southeast coast has been so successful, we now have a year-round red-drum fishery,” he said. “I can catch red drum at any time. They move around a lot from month to month, but I’ve spent so much time fishing for them, I always know where there’s a feeding school.”
Culbreth once owned a 23-foot boat, but a roadway accident destroyed his boat and trailer.
“It turned out to be a good thing,” he said. “I started fishing a 16-foot Carolina Skiff. For getting into backwaters, you can’t beat it. It’s great on fuel, easier to pole, and I can launch at shallow-water ramps.”
When the flood tide comes, Culbreth switches tactics. He poles along grass beds watching for signs of red drum. Sometimes he spots a tailing fish. Other times he sees the red below the surface or grass moving as a fish rubs against it.
“I use weedless spoons when fish are in the grass,” he said. “I have a ton of anglers who catch reds with fly tackle.”
The biggest problem with catching fish using fly tackle is the March wind.
“Sometimes the wind will lay out at night, then get up with the sun,” Culbreth said. “That small window may be your only opportunity to catch a fish with a fly. The wind makes it harder to cast and harder to see fish because of the ripples.”
While most anglers use floating fly lines, Culbreth prefers intermediate sinking lines.
“The water you’re fishing is so shallow, it’s easy to pick up a sinking line,” he said. “It can’t sink over a couple of feet. The extra weight helps you get the fly to the fish.”
Culbreth ties a fly called a “Rattle Shrimp” to catch red drum. He said the sound of a rattle along with the shrimp shape attract strikes.
“If you get a Rattle Shrimp within 4 feet of a redfish, he’s going to eat it,” he said. “But other flies work.
“Most of my fly fishermen are from the western part of the state where they catch mountain trout. They come for a change of pace and give it a try with flies they’ve tied.
“They think they’re going to hook a red drum, but it’s the other way around. Once you catch red drum with a fly, you’re hooked on catching them for the rest of your life.”
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