Bald Head bays crackle with topwater reds

The marshes between Bald Head Island and the Federal Point Wildlife Ramp (Fort Fisher) provide a hot location for topwater red drum fishing this summer.

Guide Lewis Emery (TailsUp Charters, 910-617-2194, tailsupcharters@yahoo.com) and Wilmington resident Larry Essick found a school of reds at Buzzard Bay one evening last week and worked them for two hours at dusk.

“The fishing (for reds) starts about May and runs through October here,” said Emery, a Florida native who moved to North Carolina a few years ago and now works for Island Hardware&Tackle of Carolina Beach. “But June and July are really good months.”

Emery and Essick, a retired Greenville, S.C., building contractor who moved to North Carolina four years ago, tossed 3 1/8-inch-long HBNC (clown color — orange, white, chartreuse) Rapala Skitterwalks and 3 1/2-inch MirrOlure She Dog lures in black and chartreuse (head).

The She Dogs outfished the Skitterwalks 9 to 1 once the duo located a concentrated school of red drum.

“Sometimes the Skitterwalks are good; sometimes the She Dogs work better,” Emery said.

The hot bite started about 3 hours before dark and continued into the night. Emery said anglers may stay at the shallow bays and have great success, but night fishing can be risky.

“The water’s a little shallow back here (Buzzard Bay); I like to leave (for the Fort Fisher ramp) before it gets totally dark,” Emery said. “You have to know your way around; if you don’t, you can get stuck on a bar or run your lower unit into an oyster shell mound. It’s best to fish (in the bays above Bald Head) when there’s a rising or high tide, even during daylight hours.”

Emery and Essick fished for two hours with the most extensive bite occurring from 6 to 8 p.m.

They cast their lures at marsh edges. The reds — 25- to 27-inch-long fish — where holding in the spartina grass and just off the banks of the marsh islands scattered throughout the bay.

“There’s some places where you can get out and wade fish,” Emery said. “You have to know where the bottom’s solid. Guys even can fly fish out there. It’s a blast.”