I first must apologize for my absence from my fishing report. I have fortunately been extremely busy, and many long, hot days on the water haven't left much time to jump on the computer and type a report. We survived what was one of, if not the busiest July 4th week I have ever seen around Ocean Isle and Sunset Beaches. While the added pressure and boat traffic certainly didn't make the fishing any easier, we still manged to find some critters over the past couple of weeks. It seems that we may now be slipping into a weather pattern much like last July, as we have had several stormy days so far this month, but hopefully things will become a little less unsettled in the near furture.
As I have said to many folks over the past couple of weeks, we're in a pretty typical summertime pattern as far as the fishing goes. This means that the water is hot and the fish can oftentimes be quite unpredictable. We're still picking away at all of our usual target species, and they may bite well for a couple of days, and then not bite for the next couple. We have certainly had some great trips recently, but we have also had some that were a little slow as well.
Overall, our speckled trout fishing remains quite consistent, both in terms of numbers of fish and size. While we have been covered up by the small trout a few times recently, we're still finding a good many nice ones in the 2-4 lb. range. We've also continued to find a few redfish and black drum mixed in on many of the spots where we have been finding the trout. I still haven't spent a ton of time flounder fishing, but we have managed to pick off a few when we have, including a few nice keepers to boot. I am sure that we will certainly be spending more time focusing on the flounder in the coming weeks however.
I still have have a few openings left in July and plenty after that, so be sure to give me a call if you're going to be in town and want to do some inshore fishing.
I've actually taken quite a few photos lately, so I'll let them tell the rest of the story. Check them out below to see how our last couple of weeks have been.
-Capt. Kyle