Bottom fishing is the bomb off the southeastern North Carolina coast.
With the opening of black sea bass season June 1 by the National Marine Fisheries Service, anglers should be able to fill their fish coolers this summer.
“We’ve been catching and releasing big black sea bass for a good while,” said Capt. Butch Foster of Yeah Right Charters, based at South Harbor Marine, Southport. “And there already are plenty of groupers to catch.”
James “Skeeter” Midgette Sr. of Winnabow, fishing aboard the Yeah Right II on May 29, along with his son, James Midgette Jr. and Marissa Reeves of Wilmington, landed red and gag grouper, pinkies, vermilion snapper, grunts, amberjacks and sharks. Midgette capped the trip with a massive 30-pound red grouper that was only 3 1/2 pounds shy of the state record of 33 pounds, 8 ounces caught off Atlantic Beach by Chuck Deuter in 2007.
“That’s the biggest red grouper I’ve seen in 30 years of fishing down here,” Foster said.
Foster (910.845.2004) navigated from offshore wrecks to rock formations after a 3-hour trip due south from Southport. Anglers first dropped lines near the Navy Wreck and caught amberjacks and sea bass while large cobia swam underneath the boat. Later he moved to rock formations and found mostly black bass and grunts before discovering rocks in 110 to 120 feet of water that held gag and red grouper. Foster’s fishing tackle included 6 1/2-foot-long Penn rods and Penn 113HSP Senator reels spooled with 100-pound test monofilament and double dropper lines with 10-0 circle hooks baited with cut squid and frozen cigar minnows above 10-ounce bank sinkers.
Electric reels are available aboard the Yeah Right II, a 34-foot-long Chris Craft powered by twin diesels, and Midgette, 60, used an Anthony Ng Precision Reel to pull up his near-record red grouper.
“I don’t know if I could’ve got him to the top without that electric reel,” said Midgette, who’d earlier caught dozens of fish with a regular rod and reel.
The big fish was weighed at Oak Island Pier with official scales operated by pier-director Tommy Thomes. The grouper measured 33 1/2 inches in length and 28 1/2 inches in girth. Thomes helped Midgette fill out the required form to obtain a red grouper catch citation from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.
Anglers may keep three red, scamp, yellowfin and yellowmouth grouper together or in combination along with one golden tilefish and no more than one black or gag grouper. Other groupers that can be landed include scamp, rock hind, red hind, coney, grasby and tiger grouper. However, the minimum length for red, scamp, yellowfin, yellowmouth and gag grouper is 20 inches. Vermilion snapper (bee-liner) season opened March 31. Red snapper season remains closed.
The minimum-size limit for black sea bass is 12 inches with a daily per-person limit of 15 fish.
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