Four of North Carolina’s best saltwater guides agree that September’s Hurricane Florence caused habitat changes for speckled trout, moving them out of their favorite inshore haunts.
But they also said specks would return to their neighborhoods and get on with their lives — just like people.
“Before (Florence), all the trout were up the Trent, Neuse and Pungo rivers, and the waters pushed them out,” said Noah Lynk of Harkers Island. “Trout don’t like polluted water. We always catch lots of trout here right after a big storm. You can tell they’re river trout because they’re really dark, black-colored and not silvery. When (Hurricane) Matthew hit up around Little Washington (October 2016), within a day or two, we were inundated with trout. I took people who didn’t even know what a trout was and they caught limits.”
Around Swansboro, Dale Collins said Florence’s flood waters “ran all the shrimp out of the (White Oak) river. That hurt trout fishing a while, but it usually picks up by a month later.”
Ricky Kellum agreed flood waters push trout out of feeder creeks because specks “look like largemouth bass in color, dark-green, not ocean silver.”
“The (New River) always recovers fast after hurricanes,” he said. “We caught trout a week after Floyd and Fran. Tide changes clear up the water.”
Lynk said specks “absolutely” will return from the ocean to inside waters after a big storm.
“Typically you have a month that’s on hold because of dirty water and beat-down grass,” he said. “But by mid-October, trout really start to show and the bite turns on.”
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