During the spring, Capt. Stu Caulder likes to fish the Cape Fear River between Carolina Beach and Southport. He said there is a wide variety of topography in this section of the river and he can usually locate redfish on some part of it.
This section of the Cape Fear River is very wide, with a ship channel running approximately through the middle. The ship channel was dredged to reach its depth, and maintenance dredging is still required occasionally. There are small islands that were created along the channel with the material removed from the channel by the dredges.
These islands are locally referred to as “spoil islands” or “dredge-dump islands.” There are places with bare sand, places where the marsh grass grows out into several feet of water and even places where ballast materials from old sailing vessels litter the banks and are scattered through the water.
Wide stretches of shallower water with different bottom compositions and textures lie between the spoil islands and the river’s banks. These diverse areas provide habitat for a variety of fish. Red drum are one of the most-popular fish caught around the spoil islands and in the bays and flats between the islands and the river banks. Speckled trout and flounder are the other two species in the top three for this area.
A rock wall resembling a jetty is one of the most-unique structures in the lower section of the river. It serves to separate the river from the Basin, Second Bay and Buzzard Bay. Known locally as “The Rocks,” it was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1890s, is approximately three miles long and runs from Fort Fisher to a marsh island behind Bald Head Island.
The rock wall has places where it is still solid, and places where hurricanes and other storms have battered holes. At higher stages of the tide, water runs across the lower sections and through some of the damaged areas and creates feeding funnels for baitfish washed through.
