Tuesday With…
A visit to North Carolina’s Outer Banks and one realizes this is the crossroads for three dozen kinds of battling fish. A single hookup and an argument can be settled.
Not all of the 36 are what one would call great opponents on hook and line. You catch them anyway, because the not-so-great fighters, like the summer flounder, provide superb table fare. Even people who say they don’t care for fish will say yes when offered flounder that has been broiled with butter, chopped celery, and onions and topped with a pinch of parsley.
Or when flounder fillets, or even crappie taken from Sebasticook Lake, have been rolled in seasoned flour, dipped in beaten egg, then breaded and panfried golden brown. So much for what fat guys should not eat!
The Outer Banks are a string of narrow islands called barrier beaches that stretch southward from the Virginia line to Cape Fear. It’s a strategic location. The land here turns seaward, cutting the distance boatmen must cruise to the Gulf Stream and the sportfish which follow this warm water river in spring and fall.
Besides seasonally hosting such southern visitors as tarpon, king mackerel, sailfish, blue marlin, pompano, and cobia, the surf and bays and offshore waters hold open house for northern migrants, too: huge bluefish and striped bass arrive in Cape Hatteras waters in November and generally are around through January.
Not all the fish can be found all of the time along the Outer Banks. To everything there is a season, and that includes the finny species we seek with hook and line and net. But the blessing of North Carolina’s seacoast is that there’s usually something willing to swat a bait or whack a lure.
When one fish departs, another species’ prime time begins. Sailfishing is best from late June to October. The latter month sees a population buildup of spotted weakfish along the beaches, hiding in the sloughs where beachcasters can reach them with Mirrolures or bait.
Last month the bluefish arrived.
Not all are world hook and line record size like the 31-pound, 12-ounce brute a man lifted from the water off Hatteras Island one cold day a few Januarys back, but they are respectable fish. In fact, the hungry choppers appeared in such numbers that the surfcasters got tired of them and wished they would go away for a while so stripers and weakfish would have a chance.
Other species which appear in North Carolina salt water or live there year around span the alphabet from amberjack to yellowfin tuna, with stops at B for bluefin tuna, C for croaker, D for dolphin, G for gray trout, P for porgy, R for red snapper, S for spot and swordfish, and W for wahoo and whiting.
Fishing methods are as diverse as the fish themselves.
The fisherman can try his luck in the shallow sounds between the barrier beach and bottomfishing from boats, and prowl the beaches with surf rod in search of gulls and terns, a sign of feeding fish. It isn’t necessary to throw a long cast to reach them, because 36 ocean piers put the anglers beyond the breakers without getting wet.
Pier fishermen generally catch bottom fish, like flounder and whiting, but they’re not limited to sinker bouncing. Floatfishing from piers accounts for a lot of hookups with powerful king mackerel and the occasional tarpon.
It’s rare the startled angler gets more than a leap or two out of those two acrobats, but just holding onto the fishing rod while a tarpon or king does his thing is an experience.
Two other benefits the Outer Banks extends the visitor are solitude, or something very much like a relatively unspoiled appearance. For the southbound travelers from northern climes with a hankering to fish, a stop at Hatteras and the Outer Banks can expect the sight of grass-clad sand dunes yet unleveled by the bulldozer blade and a mix of three dozen kinds of fish that’ll willingly take on the fool with a fish rod in his palms.
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