A 22lb king was caught from Surf City Pier yesterday. First one in a while. The pluggers have been catching a few blues in the morning along with some nice size spanish. The flounder bite remains good, with a few keepers coming over the rail each day. There are a few mullets at night, with a few spots, but not big ones.
I decided to try my luck in the surf this morning. I had my line in the water a little after seven. My bait consisted of three dozen live shrimp and four dozen live finger mullets. The mullet minnows were a little on the large size. The morning started out with a bang. I baited up with shrimp, and started throwing a mirro-lure hoping to latch onto a speckled trout. My bottom rig (shrimp)doubled over then went slack. I tightened the line, the fish made a hard run when it felt pressure. I gained a little ground, then another hard run, and then the line got tangled on something under the surface, and my line was broken. After tying another rig, and baiting with another live shrimp, I went back to casting my mirro-lure. After a couple of lost shrimp probably to pin fish, I got another good bite, this time bringing the fish all the way in to the breakers. But luck was not on my side, and a breaking wave knocked a big spec off my hook, just as I dragged it onto the sand. Fish 2, Horner 0. My friend Tommy got there about the time I was finishing my rant about loosing my biggest spec of the year.
Soon after big schools of mullet minnows were moving south down the beach, and with them came the blues. Big chopper blues. We went through all the shrimp, and all the finger mullets by afternoon, and I was in the surf throwing my cast net for more. We ended up catching 3 nice choppers, which Tom and Susan put away along with some fresh shrimp for their supper.
We should have caught more, but I didn't have any wire leaders, and I got cut off I don't know how many times. I thought I was going to run out of gear before I ran out of bait. After getting a hard bite, we would have just the head of our mullet minnow, or just the tail, whatever part we put the hook into was the part the blues would leave behind. Other anglers up and down the beach tried throwing gotchas and other lures, but the blues wouldn't bit anything but the live minnows. At times the water was black with bait fish.
But all in all, it was a fun day and one thing I learned is that I should always have a couple of wire leaders in my box. Another thing is that the speckled trout are starting to show up in the surf. Go to your favorite tackle shop, if you are going to be on Topsail Island soon, visit Chris at East Coast Sports, or Steve at Herring's Outdoor Sports and find out what the most popular mirro-lure colors are for this year. I haven't heard anything about the Berkley Gulp Salt Water baits for trout, but if they work for specs like they work for flounder and reds, better stock up on them while you are at the tackle shop also.
Till next time....
Tight Lines!
Johnny
