Paint ‘em Black

Different drum give anglers good-eatin’ reasons to try bay waters north of Bald Head Island during August.

During August at the southeastern N.C. coast, the heat’s usually so intense people don’t bother stopping at cafes for breakfast; they just scoop up fried eggs off the sidewalks. The humidity’s also likely to be so high gnats and mosquitos surf down rollers of sweat on arms and legs of anyone foolish enough to walk outside past mid morning.

Most fish with any sense, it seems, have fled north to cooler climes or are hiding underneath any shadows cast upon the water by scattered bridges, docks or piers. The heat and humidity force anglers to climb into boats early each morning to catch a few flounder before the night’s breezes evaporate like spittle on a griddle by 9 a.m., leaving only a hard-iron taste in the mouth and a desire to find a recliner in front of the air conditioner, strip down to skivvies and pop open a cool one.

Flounder are fine to catch and eat, no doubt. But unless you’re also fond of bluefish — which’ll bite anytime during the summer — or you’ve got the temperament and quick-draw reflexes of a gunfighter to go after sheepshead, flatties are about all most people believe the deep-heat summer months have to offer, or at least as far as skinny-water fishing is concerned.

But not so fast.

There’s another fish out there that’s almost totally overlooked, mostly lives in water 3- to 6-feet deep, takes a fine touch to catch, is plentiful at selected inshore spots, has an unlimited creel (you can keep as many as you want of any size), its favorite food/bait is waiting to be scooped up free in the surf or mud flats and, when filleted and popped on the grill after a little marination, rivals any seafood New Orleans’ chef Paul Prudhomme can concoct.

Moreover, the average specimen runs about 4 pounds, but 10-pounders are common, 20-pounders aren’t rare, and individuals can push 100 pounds.

What kind of fish, you ask, could this be?

“I love fishing for black drum,” said Lewis Emery, a Wilmington resident who splits his time between working at Lloyd Eastlack’s Bug-Em Bait Company and being a part-time guide (Tails Up Charters, 910-617.2194, www.tailsupcharters.com).

One day Emery’s father, Dana Emery, a preacher at Wilmington’s Winter Park Church of Christ, walked into Eastlack’s tackle shop and heard the owner complaining about being overworked and needing some quality help.

“Dad said to Lloyd ‘I got just the guy for you,’ ” Emery said.

A few days later, Eastlack interviewed Emery and hired him on the spot.

Strangely enough, that he’d grown up at coastal towns from Florida to Texas — after moving with the family as his dad pastored at different churches — helped Emery get the job at Bug-Em Bait and later become a guide.

“I was born in Boca Raton (Fla.), he said, “but the longest time I lived anywhere growing up was Fort Lauderdale. Then we moved to Chokoloskee (due west of Miami on the Gulf Coast where Emery fished the Ten Thousand Islands region). Later we lived in the Houston/Galveston Bay area.

“So I’ve fished both sides (Atlantic and Gulf coasts).”

It would have been a minor miracle if Emery hadn’t become fascinated with saltwater fishing. Every place the family lived featured some of the most fabulous inshore fishing the United States had to offer just outside his back door. Try to image Cal Ripken Jr. not becoming a baseball player after basically growing up in the Baltimore Orioles’ dugout.

Emery tried other pursuits, but nothing grabbed him like fishing.

“I went to San Jacinto Community College in Houston for a while,” he said.

With an eye toward majoring in what subject?

“Well,” the 27-year old said, “let’s just say I liked fishing better.

“Now I can’t quit; I love it too much. I especially love teaching (kids and grownups) how to fish.”

So what about black drum?

“Meet me at the Fort Fisher boat ramp at 5:15 a.m.,” Emery said.

The Fort Fisher WRC ramp is a lightly-used boat access most days and perfect for shallow-water anglers. It marks the end of U.S. 421, which begins near Boone in the N.C. mountains. Even better, it provides direct access to the first of three bays that are wonderful fishing destinations.

“There’s First Bay, Second Bay and Buzzard’s Bay,” Emery said.

These bays are wide expanses of relatively shallow water marked by interspersed marsh islands, creeks and oyster-shell banks and mounds. In addition, from Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, a rock wall parallels the eastern shore of the Cape Fear River south to Bald Head. Built during the 1890s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to keep the Cape Fear River from diverting through Corncake Inlet and creating shoals in the Cape Fear River. the wall is called “The Rocks” and protects what locals call “First Bay” (properly known as “The Basin”) and two other bays (Second and Buzzard’s). Zeke’s Island, No Name Island and North Island also are protected behind this jagged wall.

“What you want to do in August is get out here early, at first light, if the tide’s right,” Emery said.

The right tide is a falling tide but not dropped so much that launching a boat at the Fort Fisher ramp is impossible.

“If there’s too much water (high or rising tides during a new moon period), you can launch the boat, but (high water) scatters the fish,” Emery said. “You want there to be less water, so it’ll concentrate the black drum. It also makes it easier to see the oyster rock humps.

“And oyster rocks are where it’s at for black drum here.”

However, as in fishing for any other inshore species, black drum (part of the croaker family) don’t always remain at the same spot from day to day. Inside Buzzard’s Bay in particular, there’s so much open water that black drum are likely to be concentrated at any number of shell beds or oyster-rock mounds.

“They’re here,” Emery said, “but it sometimes takes a little time to find them. I know they were at one place two days ago, but they might not be there today.”

His strategy was to fish through First and Second bays, trying likely-looking areas until he reached his prime objective, an area he called the “Six Sisters.”

“You’ll know what I mean when we get there,” he said.

Getting there was the easy part because Emery has a 19-foot Carolina Skiff, powered by a 90-horsepower Yamaha outboard and also fitted with a MinnKota RTAP (Riptide Autopilot/co-pilot) trolling motor. The boat draws about 6 inches of water, enabling it to reach almost any spot in the three bays and maneuver through tight spots.

Once he tilts the motor, Emery can direct the boat’s trolling motor with a remote-control watch-like device on his right wrist. The skiff also has a small step-up platform on the bow and a larger one above the motor, affording better angles to spot fish.

“(The RTAP) also has a compass that, once you set a direction, it keeps (the boat) straight,” Emery said.

Baits were obtained fairly easily the previous day from the surf at area beaches (mole crabs or “sand fleas”) or from marshes (fiddler crabs).

“You can get sand fleas yourself,” he said. “I put ’em in a child’s sand bucket, then in the refrigerator overnight. I’ve got a friend who also uses fiddler crabs and catches ’em for me. He just scoops them up (with a baitwell net in the marsh). Some people use a buried bucket and a couple of planks to drive ’em into the bucket.

“Black drum will eat either one, but it seems like they like sand fleas better.”

The top baits for black drum are “the little black crabs (mud crabs) you find underneath and between oyster rocks, but it takes you an hour and a half to catch two dozen.,” Emery said. “They’re the best because the bait-stealers, like pinfish, won’t eat ’em. That’s what drum are doing at oyster beds, trying to get at those little black crabs hiding between the shells.”

His black-drum tackle actually is a combination setup. He needs a little stronger equipment than normal because sometimes a big red drum, 35 inches or longer, may chow down on a fiddler or mole crab.

“I like 7-foot medium-action spinning reels with 15- to 30-pound-test braided line and 2 1/2- to 3-foot-long fluorocarbon leaders,” Emery said. “I use a Spro swivel to start (a 20-pound-test fluorocarbon) leader and tie on a 6-inch-long dropper loop and a No. 2 or No. 4 LO42s Eagle Claw wide-bend hook or 1-0 or 2-0 Owner Mosquito hooks, then another 1 1/2 feet of leader to another dropper loop, then a 1- to 3-ounce bank sinker, depending on how hard the current’s moving where I’m fishing.

“The hook size is important because you want a good wire hook you can straighten out if you get hung up on the bottom. Mosquito hooks will handle big red drum, too.

“I know fluorocarbon is invisible and all that, but I like it because it’s tough. But you’re still going to lose some fish by getting cut off (by oyster edges and barnacles).

“You also can fish for black drum with a Carolina rig; you don’t have to use the double-dropper.”

Emery said he likes the double rig because it puts more scent into the water.

“One of main reasons I use sand fleas is for chum,” he said. “You put them in the water to get things stirred up.”

His fishing technique is to cast near a likely-looking area that’s in 4 to 6 feet of water during the outgoing tide, reel in slack line, then wait for a “thump.”

“It’s not hard to figure out a black drum hit,” Emery said. “It’ll be a ‘thump,’ and you’ll feel some weight on your line. You also might see your line moving. But you don’t have but a second to set the hook after you feel the ‘thump’ or see the line move. They’re kinda like sheepshead; when they feel the hook, they’ll spit it out, so you have to be quick.”

It took Emery five stops and perhaps 2 1/2 hours of fishing, while maneuvering a maze of creeks and openings in First and Second bays, before he reached an area locals call the “Six Sisters” inside Buzzard’s Bay. It’s actually 12 almost identical cone-shaped oyster mounds rising above the water during mid-tide periods.

“This is where (the black drum) were two days ago,” he said.

A toss of his baited hooks (he puts two or three sand fleas on each hook but only one fiddler crab per hook) resulted in an instantaneous hookup with a 4-pound black drum. After dropping the fish in his cooler, Emery hooked an identical drum after his next cast.

“Two weeks ago I caught my biggest black drum here,” he said. “It weighed 20 pounds.

“Some people like to go over to that dock (the ADM) on the (Cape Fear River) and catch huge ones, but I don’t; the big ones aren’t good to eat.”

After the bite slowed, he dropped several sand fleas over the side.

“Chummin’,” he said.

Within seconds, he was fighting a 6-pound black drum. He quickly caught two more, and we called it a day,

“This is a really good area to shallow-water fish all summer,” he said. “The drum are usually in here somewhere. They’re fun to catch and cook up well, too.”

His favorite recipe involves marinating fillets overnight in Italian seasoning and soy sauce, then cooking them over a hot grill, 2 to 3 minutes per side or until the meat’s flaky.

“Starting in July, if you want to have some fun at night with big fish, you can come out here (the bays across from Southport) and catch tarpon,” he said. “And you always can catch black drum for eating.”