Red Dawns

From pier, surf or boat, even novice anglers have a chance at trophy-size drum at the OBX this spring.

Spring hot spots for big 40-inch, 30-year-old red drum (channel bass) will be Portsmouth Island, Ocracoke Island, and southern Hatteras Island. If you’re new, follow the other 4x4s, fish the same way with fresh-cut menhaden with a short-shank 9/0 to 11/0 circle hook on a three-way or slider rig and don’t get too friendly with the next guy, as the fast surf drags rigs down the beach no matter the weight of a sinker or its prongs.

If the gear is light or matched to the wrong sinker, an angler is wasting an opportunity and is a nuisance on the beach.

“Y’all git thee to a local tackle shop.”

OBX stores have the right gear for big red drum that other places don’t stock, and much of it is locally made by people who do nothing else.

You’ll need the ferry and a motel reservation to fish Portsmouth, so find back issues of this magazine. At Hatteras Island, most of the fishermen work the beach south of “The Point” at Buxton.

Pick up your news, bait and rigs at the two big tackle shops, the Red Drum or Dillon’s Corner at Buxton. One of the greatest historic drum spots (both recent world records) is 5 to 6 miles north of here at the beach between Avon Pier to the second ramp south.

Stop at “Frank and Fran’s Tackle Shop” in Avon for the skinny, rigs and bait. Frank Folb knows channel bass as well as anyone in North Carolina, and his daughter can show you how to cast like a champ (which she is, so don’t bet money on beating her distance).

Fresh (never frozen) menhaden (aka pogie, mossbunker, herring) chunks are the best channel bass beach bait. Most of the guys and gals use fish-finder (slider rigs). Some guys tie their own sliders, but I’d rather buy ready-mades at local tackle shops.

Anglers need to be able to read the beach to determine where the surf is breaking across a shoal, and where the water is ripping out between the bars. They also need big heavy casting gear (Hatteras Heaver tackle) capable of throwing a pound of weight a heck of long way out.

Long casts close to the breaks in the second bar off the beach are best targets much of the time, as fish tend to feed at the slopes of these channels. They’ll come in close to the beach after dark or in dirty (muddy) water stirred by onshore winds.

This time of year, most of the action is south of The Point (where the South Atlantic Bight water is noticeably warmer) early in the month, or anytime there’s a strong steady blow from the southwest. Later reds will spread northward and aggregate off the second sandbars all the way from Portsmouth to Rodanthe.

Most anglers will hate driving past Oregon Inlet, which looks so great but, believe me, the fish are mostly south, so keep on truckin’. The fish also could be well south (the first ones are always reported from Portsmouth Island).

If anglers don’t want to fish the north end of Portsmouth (it’s hard work), try Frisco, False Point at the south end of Hatteras Island (north side of Hatteras Inlet), and the northern point of Ocracoke at the south side of Hatteras Inlet.

The south point of the island (Ocracoke Inlet) is good, but more heavily fished. Ocracoke is only 12-miles long, so anglers easily can fish either end. Great restaurants and lodgings are there, too.

Not every hit is a drum.

Anglers might snag a skinny spring chopper bluefish or a gray seatrout with a jig or chunk of bait, but most of the bait bites will be skates or dogfish sharks, so don’t get your shorts in a twist every time your rod tip groans. By the way, people can eat skates if you’re curious or desperate or no longer have a sense of smell or of taste. I recommend planking them.

Piers

When I first came to North Carolina, the Avon Pier was the best red drum pier in the state, but it was also almost 1,000-feet long.

Hurricanes, winter nor’easters and the rising cost of lumber have reduced the pier by half, but it still does a decent job of getting big red drum at night.

To the north, the much longer Rodanthe Pier now gets most of the red drum fishermen, and it does just fine.

To the far south, the old pier at Frisco continues to rack up big red drum, sharks and all kinds of other big fish later in the year. But the dearth of major tackle shops, motels, and restaurants limits the fishermen who come here. Still, it’s worth a shot, as it’s the only important red drum pier at the South Atlantic Bight.

Pier fishing for red drum is strictly cut bait on the bottom, with the long casters getting the most fish. As at the beach, anglers need to change cut baits at least three times per hour, so it also leaks smelly juices.

Once the bait is wrung out by the beating of the water (and casts, and crabs, and little nuisance fish), it isn’t worth squat. Drum sniff before they taste (ask anyone).

Big drum are lifted up to the deck with hoop nets on long, thick, knotted ropes. There is a state slot size of 18 to 27 inches, within which anglers may keep one fish per day, but nobody does. Anything bigger must by law go back.

The regulars throw all big drum back (by lowering them to the water via a hoop net). If an angler wants to show the folks back home what he caught, take a picture.

Bodie Island piers shouldn’t be disparaged, but most anglers believe they can’t compete with the Hatteras Island piers for big red drum during the spring, although they’re okay in the fall.

Nearshore boats

Fundamentalist drum fishermen face east and fish the beaches five times a night. Sometimes they catch one.

If an angler really wants to catch red drum, hire a half-day guide with a half-size boat. They’re usually available by inquiring at tackle shops or marinas from Wanchese through Hatteras to Ocracoke.

These locals can run their boats to easy casting distance of the tops of the nastiest shoals in the roughest water where big schools of bigger drum eat sand crabs and small baitfish. When the weather is bluebird perfect, one might get a chance for that lifetime experience of casting to schools of bronzebacks in clear water.

The two best red drum inlets are Ocracoke Inlet and Hatteras Inlet. The fishing technique is the same, but the locations are known best to the local skippers.

Ronnie O’Neal, Jr. skippers the Miss Kathleen out of Ocracoke (252-928-4841), and he loves drum fishing. Miss Kathleen is a 34-foot Harker’s Island boat with a cabin, a canopy and tower for sight casting. He’s had her for 26 years and thinks he’ll keep her.

“Best time is late April and early May,” he said “When the winds lay down, the water clears up, and you can see schools of hundreds of big drum.”

O’Neal sight casts to reds using 20-pound spinning gear.

“I’ve had guys bring fly rods out here,” he said, but he doesn’t carry them, so anglers need to bring their own long poles.

O’Neal works south around Ocracoke inlet and outside the inlet at the shoals, mainly in 20 to 30 feet of water. If the water is calm and clear, he’ll sometimes find hundreds of giants in 5 to 15 feet of water.

He usually casts bucktail jigs with a yellow or white twister tail or sweetened with a piece of mullet or menhaden to give it an odor.

“Big drum smell rather than see the bait in dirty water,” he said.

When it’s rough, churned up, and muddy, O’Neal uses cut menhaden chunks with all the rigs.

Darrell Hendricks (252-216-6440) skippers the Tiderunner, a 24-foot center console out of Hatteras Harbor Marina. She’s a Carolina flared boat with a tower for sight casting. And sight casting is Hendricks’ specialty.

“April is consistent and good if the weather is good,” Hendricks said, “for sight casting on schools in clear water.”

Good weather means a southwest wind with warming temperatures. That brings the big fish close to the beach near the lighthouse.

As the water continues to warm, the fish advance to the “Hook” where baitfish pile up.

Hendricks throws bucktails, diamond jigs with surgical tubes or Hopkins jigs (“spoons’) at the bronze patches of big drum. Even when the water is dirty from a strong onshore wind, he’ll throw artificials because he knows the fish are there. It doesn’t matter if he can’t see them; he knows they can see the jigs.

In late April the big fish move out to the shoals just outside Hatteras Inlet, and Hendricks fishes the bottom with cut bait (mostly menhaden) in the deeper and dirtier water.

“Only about three of us with small boats fish inshore for red drum, and even some of the big boats will take regular fares there,” he said. “But mostly they don’t want to get up on them lumps and knock the bottoms out of their boats.”

What else is around besides big drum?

“Gray trout on the bottom, tailor bluefish everywhere, and schools of albacore (fat alberts, little tunny) show up all the time,” he said.

That’s when he switches to sting silvers.

Really late in the month will bring the first of the cobia. That’s when Hendricks really gets frisky.