If you like catching big Spanish mackerel or false albacore, try Cape Lookout.
“Big Spanish from 2 to 6 pounds are thick between the (East Side) shoals and Cape Lookout,” said Capt. Noah Lynk of Noah’s Ark Fishing Charters (252-342-6911). “They’re hitting light-lined live bait, but small artificials that are clear (transparent), anything that looks like a glass minnow, will catch them too. Some false albacore are coming in close (to shore) too, and they’ll hit the same things.”
Artificial-lure anglers are using any lure that resembles a glass minnow because the water “is full of them,” Lynk said. “You can throw everything in your tackle box, and you might catch three or four Spanish, but if you use something that looks like a glass minnow, you’ll catch ’em.
“Use a small jig head with any type lure that’s 1 to 1 1/2-inches long. (The Spanish) don’t want to hit sting silvers (metal jigs); they want small lures that look like glass minnows.”
With glass minnows difficult to land in a net, Lynk said he uses a Fin-S lure that’s 2-inches long with a little split tail.
“But if you light line a minnow out there, they’ll take care of it pretty quick,” he said.
Big red drum are in the channels and sloughs at the Crystal Coast as well.
“The reds are really big,” he said. “Some guys fishing toward Davis and Atlantic had a hard time catching slot fish this week because everything they landed was over-slot (27 inches). They’re having the best luck on cut mullet.”
Lynk said speckled trout also are providing action around the bridge pilings at Atlantic Beach and Beaufort.
“People are using live shrimp,” he said.
A few gray trout are being caught in the deep holes, from 15 to 20 feet, at hard shell bottoms and in the Middle Marshes and the hook at Cape Lookout. But anglers may keep only one gray trout per day.
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