Unusually cold December weather has fired up the Atlantic Ocean striped bass bite along North Carolina’s northern coastline.
“N.C. guys are catching stripers all along the beaches and out to the 3-mile limit from 15 to 35 miles north of Oregon Inlet,” said veteran Oregon Inlet charter Devin Cage, captain of the Poacher.
Cage, who lives in Manteo, said surf anglers are having success with stripers from Kitty Hawk to Duck to Corolla along with boat anglers.
“Fish are being caught up to 45 pounds,” said Cage (Poacher Sportfishing, 252-473-6108, www.poachersportfishing.com). “Actually a lot of boat anglers are catching their limits (two fish per day per angler, 28-inches minimum length).”
Cage fishes for ocean stripers from Rudee Inlet, Va., south of Chesapeake Bay, to Kitty Hawk. Most fish weigh between 20 to 35 pounds.
His striped bass trolling lures include Mann’s Stretch 25 crankbaits (6-inches long) and Stretch 30s (8-inches long), parachute rigs (8-ounce jigheads with bright Mylar skirts) and Mojos (48- to 60-ounce jigheads with skirts and a 12-inch soft plastic shad tail threaded onto the hook).
“You can also jig vertically (with heavy leadhead jigs that have 10 to 12-inch-long soft-plastic ribbontails) when you get into the birds,” Cage said.
Ocean anglers look for swarms of sea birds (gannets) that indicate where stripers are feeding on schools of menhaden. The birds wheel, cry and dive on bits and pieces of these baitfish that are chopped up by marauding rockfish.
“When you see the gannets, you’ve got stripers underneath them,” said Cage, whose largest ocean striper weighed 47 pounds.
He also uses his fish-finder to look for schools of menhaden and rockfish.
“Stripers started biting at the coast about the second week of December, and now the run is on because of cold weather,” Cage said. “But you can find fish here until March, if you go looking for them.
“It’s just a matter of getting pretty days so you can go out (on the ocean) after them.”
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