Great Spanish mackerel bite kicking off Cape Lookout fishing

Bluefish, cobia making an appearance; most flounder are shorts

 Capt Noah Lynk of Noah’s Ark Charters in Harkers Island said there is a lot of fishy activity in the waters around Cape Lookout, with Spanish mackerel and bluefish are around the jetty, cobia cruising the waters inside and outside the hook and some flounder are starting to show on the bars and channel edges inside the hook.

“With the nice weather we have been enjoying, I have been heading into the ocean early and then coming back inside when the wind begins to pick up,” Lynk said. “Most days, the mornings are calm, and we can head out and catch some Spanish mackerel and maybe some bluefish before lunch.

“There is a growing number of cobia moving into the area, and they can be good or bad surprises,” Lynk said. “Today, we hooked a cobia while jigging for blues and it got the better of the light outfit. Losing it was bad, but knowing they are here and will hit lures is good. I’ll have some heavier tackle on the boat from now on.”

Lynk (252-342-6911) said the Spanish mackerel had been biting for a couple of weeks, with limits coming pretty easily most days. He said his clients have hooked a few of the big Hatteras bluefish that usually spend May around Cape Lookout, but there hasn’t been a strong run yet. Lynk said smaller bluefish have been around for a while and in strong-enough numbers that you can stop and cast to them.

Lynk’s go-to rig for Spanish uses a Clark Spook with a skirt a food or so ahead of it on the leader to attract the fish’s attention. The beauty of the rig is it can be used without a planer or trolling sinker.

“We’ve got a lot of early flounder at Cape Lookout, but most of them are a little short to keep,” Lynk said. “The good things are there are some keeper flounder, and there are enough of them to catch a couple for dinner if you fish for a while. By the end of the month … some larger flounder will be arriving.”

Lynk said flounder position themselves along the edges of the channel and sandbars inside the hook at Cape Lookout. He’s fishing mud minnows on a Salty Bay live-bait jig, casting down the ledge and creeping it back across the bottom.