Kayak Adventure

I received this email from reader Ward Clark. I hear many stories about fishing the grassy banks off the ICW(Intracoastal Waterway). I haven't had this kind of luck in my sixteen foot flat bottom boat, but I am haven't given up. I know that trout and puppy drum in this skinny water, as some boaters call the shallow flats behind Topsail Island, spook really easily.
Please feel free to email your Topsail area fish tales and I will post them.

Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.
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HI,

I stumbled onto your blog postings about six months ago and find them very informative. Thought I would share a fishing story.

I get to Topsail once a year, in the summer, and love to fish. This past summer we visited the 3rd week of July. Surf fishing was slow so one morning I went to Herrings (spelling?) kayak and fishing place and rented a kayak. I tooled around in the marshes behind their store for a couple of hours. I threw spinnerbaits at the banks, but replaced the skirt with a green and white mr. twister type rubber jig. I landed two really nice redfish in the 25” range (one may have been bigger) and lost 2 others. They were released unharmed. The bigger one towed me around for a bit before tiring. I had a blast and this was the fist time I ever fished from a kayak and the first time I ever “targeted” shallow water reds. I can’t wait to do it again. I have caught a couple over the years in the OBX while surf fishing with cut bait.

Is this typical of all the shallow backwaters behind Topsail during the summer or did I luck into one of those “great memories”? All the fish were holding in or near oyster beds.

GO TOPSAIL!!

Ward Clark