Its been a while since my last report so I will try to play catch up on whats going on along the Cape Fear Coast. The fishing has been very good on days when the wind has allowed us to get out. It has been a very windy spring but conditions will only get better from here on. There are still a few large schools of red drum from Topsail Island to Southport but most of the schools have broken up into smaller groups. The redfish are significantly more aggressive than they were a month ago and with the right presentation will eat any lure or fly. We are catching most of our fish on shrimp and minnow flies, topwater plugs, gold spoons, spinnerbaits, and a variety of soft plastic lures. I have been finding fish on flats and in tidal creeks all along the ICW and Cape Fear River. Just recently I had a friend in town to film and we captured some great footage of redfish tailing and crushing mullet on the flats. I will have the video posted to my website as soon as I get it from him. We even managed to film a few fish being caught on fly. The redfish were also tailing very good on our last set of tailing tides, and it is one of the most exciting ways to fish for them. Flounder fishing has picked up in the last few weeks and large bluefish in the 5-10lb. range are also roaming the shallow inshore waters. These bluefish will eat a variety of lures and are very fun on fly or light tackle. We also managed to pick up a few striped bass in the Cape Fear casting large swimbaits and had a few eating on the surface.
Its not often I have 2 girls on the boat for a day of fishing but Ally and Brooke were up for a fishing adventure. We spent the day chasing redfish and black drum. Each of the girls landed multiple black drum that they took home to cook that night. The redfish were a little more reluctant to eat at first but we eventually found a few that were hungry and Ally landed her first ever redfish and Brooke landed her biggest.
Here is a short unedited video of fly fishing for tailing redfish I shot with my iphone. Not great quality but you can see the fish tailing and the eat. http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u289/uncw09/?action=view¤t=36e2b7ac.mp4
A few more photos from trips the last few weeks. I will have a new camera this week so photo quality and quantity should be better with the next report.
