Red drum, trout fishing speck-tacular at SE coast

With freezing temperatures finally spreading across North Carolina (and deer season in full rut), many sportsmen have hung up their rods and reels and hit the woods in hopes of bagging a trophy buck. But at the southeastern corner of the state, fall fishing continues apace with mild weather and good catches.

“Fishing’s still good,” said guide Jeff Wolfe of Seahawk Inshore Charters of Wilmington (910.619.9580). “(Spotted sea) trout are hitting good on the beaches up around Wrightsville, but there are bigger fish being caught on the lower part of the (Cape Fear River and at the bays north of Bald Head Island), just not as many as on the beaches.”

The specks are running from 2 to 4 pounds and are hitting deep-diving stick baits, Powertail swim baits, including Gulp jerk shads, ZaraSpooks, Skitterwalks and MirrOlure topwater lures.

“Red drum also still are on the flats, and you’ll find pods of them in the creeks and in holes at low tide, and stripers are being caught up the river,” Wolfe said.

Specks seem to be more aggressive during periods of falling water (outgoing tide) “but I have places they’ll hit on the rising tide,” Wolfe said. “They seem to like soft-plastic baits more than hard baits.”

He’s casting mostly Gulp grubs in white with firetails, plus DOA paddletails and shrimp or DOA split-tails in chicken-on-a-chain colors. The paddletails are 3 inches in length while the split-tails are 4-inches long.

“The reds are hitting Gulps best and DOA paddletails, too,” Wolfe said.

Most of the specks are 20 to 23 inches in length (2 to 4 pounds).

“We’ve caught a lot of 20s and 21s,” he said. “And the new regulations (daily recreational creel dropped from six specks to four specks) haven’t hurt my business. People still want to go fishing. We catch our limit and release the rest.”

Ninety percent of the red drum he and his clients land are slot fish (18 to 27 inches), Wolfe said.

“But (red drum fishing) is getting ready to kick in good,” he said.

That means the reds soon will begin to gather in large schools and head for shallow mud flats in the backs of creeks during the day where the water’s warmer, then when the tide flows out, they’ll be forced to congregate in holes from 6- to 8-feet deep and be easy targets.

Wolfe said he usually throws 10-pound-test Spiderwire Ultracast Invisibraid line, but he’s discovered the new Berkley Nanofil line “that you can throw forever,” he said. “It’s not braid, but it’s very thin and good for winter fishing because you’re fishing open water, and fish are skittish so you don’t want to get too close to a school or risk spooking them. For trout or reds on the flats it’s no problem because the reds aren’t as strong in winter as they are in summer and aren’t likely to dive into the marsh weeds.”