Flounder plentiful at Cape Lookout

Anglers using the drift method with live baits or jigs with scented soft-plastic trailers are catching flounder in front of the Cape Lookout lighthouse.

Flounder fishing is tripping the triggers of anglers near Cape Lookout now, said a veteran Harkers Island guide.

“People are drifting for flounder around Cape Lookout, in front of the lighthouse, in the marshes and sloughs and around the creek mouths on the falling tide,” said Capt. Noah Lynk of Noah’s Ark Fishing Charters (252.342.6911, www.noahsarkfishingcharters.com). “I caught some big flounder last week.”

Lynk said several rigs work for flounder.

“If you really want to keep it simple, use a Carolina rig or a jig head and a mud minnow,” he said. “What I’ve been using for  bigger flounder are 1/8-, 1/4- or 1/2-ounce round jigheads or Hank Brown jigs with a mud minnow, Gulp! shrimp or Excite-A-Bite curly-tail grubs or minnows or any kind of scented soft-plastic lure that looks like a shrimp or minnow.”   Lynk said his best-producing soft-plastic flounder trailers are white or pink.

“(Red) drum are just starting to school up in this area, too, and people are catching some good-size speckled trout in the Middle Marshes, too,” he said.

Lures for drum and specks include M17 MirrOlures in chartreuse or 52M 808 model MirrOlures.

“The sub-walker that doesn’t stay on the surface but works just beneath has been a good speck lure,” Lynk said.

While the Turning Basin’s Port Wall at Morehead City is a fabled spot for large flounder, Lynk said Beaufort Inlet also is producing some nice king mackerel caught with live bait.

“(A team of king anglers) won a tournament there this week,” Lynk said. “Spanish mackerel fishing also has been good early in the morning and in the late evening until dark.”

For night anglers, using live shrimp near lighted docks is producing good numbers of ladyfish when the wind blows from the southwest.

About Craig Holt 1382 Articles
Craig Holt of Snow Camp has been an outdoor writer for almost 40 years, working for several newspapers, then serving as managing editor for North Carolina Sportsman and South Carolina Sportsman before becoming a full-time free-lancer in 2009.

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