Tidelines – April 24, 2014
Cousin-In-Law Matt Worth (center), flanked by Uncle-In-Law Marty Worth and Brother-In-Law J.J. Khoury, with a (very) modest striper caught on a shore line using a bright yellow Saltwater Assassin swim bait.
“Do I have a reasonable chance of catching a striper in the river tomorrow afternoon?” was the text I sent (with correct spelling and proper grammar and punctuation, or course) to Capt. Jamie Rushing of Seagate Charters on Easter Sunday.
Family was in town from New York and New Jersey for my wife’s sister’s wedding, and in spite of the horrible Easter weekend weather, they were looking to catch some fish on their visit to North Carolina. Torrential rains and high winds through the weekend gave us a very small window of Monday afternoon before they would be packing up on Tuesday and headed back north.
My usual routine when I have friends or family traveling to Wilmington that really want to get on some fish is to call a captain or guide buddy to take us out. If you want to see my typical results when left to my own skills and abilities, then you need to look no further than last issue’s Tidelines when I posted a story and photo of an 11-inch flounder. Subsequently, my go to methodology is to bring in the experts.
Unfortunately, the experts were mostly busy on that Monday after Easter, so my out-of-town in-laws would have to make due with a Gary Hurley personally-directed fishing trip (again, reference last issue’s Tidelines).
Tom Favor (left), fishing with J.J. Khoury (right), with a slot red caught using a Gulp shrimp on a shore line in the Cape Fear River.
The ocean wasn’t nearly friendly enough for sea bassing. The dock reds have been scattered. The local Wrightsville Beach trout have been extremely small. So our best option seemed to be striper fishing in the Cape Fear River.
And what’s the number of times I’ve been striper fishing in the Cape Fear River without a captain or guide on the boat? Yes, that would be zero. As many of you know, my hand gets held a lot when it comes to fishing.
And that brings us back to my text to Jamie Rushing. His reply: “Oh yeah they’re down there. I caught 5 on Thursday and had a few more bites. The rain kinda worries me but yeah probly. Good luck and Happy Easter to you guys.”
The debate of where to go, or even whether or not to go, was now over. It was time to prepare and execute (but make sure there were some beers on the boat in case striper fishing turned into a boat ride).
J.J., my brother-in-law, brought his new boat (new to him) to the downtown Wilmington boat ramp, bringing all of the family members with him, and I met the gang after teaching a couple of morning classes at Cape Fear Community College.
Early that morning before heading to work I had packed up a handful of rods (two for trolling and two for casting), some Yo-Zuri deep divers, and Gamakatsu weed-less hooks and Saltwater Assassin soft plastic swim baits. As J.J. slowly headed us upriver directly into the chop and the 10-15 mph winds, past the battleship and the Wilmington riverwalk, I voluntarily took on a task that I am mostly successful at avoiding—I started tying knots.
We had everything tied on using 20 lb. fluoro by our first stop at an area bridge. A handful of trolling passes produced no bites and nothing of real interest on the fish finder, so it was off to a little creek mouth further upriver where we tried anchoring up.
The different location and technique (tossing soft plastics) brought us the same results, so we continued on upriver to another piece of structure. Our third stop, though, was just as uneventful.
I think at this point it wasn’t that our morale was low, but we were all starting the mental preparation that goes along with a fishing trip that produces no fish. We began telling ourselves that it was a beautiful day just to be on the water, and someone broke open the cooler.
We abandoned the “known” striper haunts, and J.J. just began slow trolling us the long way back to downtown Wilmington, and that’s when we finally got a few bites.
Uncle Marty brought in the first striper, a baby fish just a little bigger than the Yo-Zuri it attacked. Tom (future husband of my wife’s other sister?) was next, hooking a 22-inch red drum while casting a soft plastic from the bow of the boat. And then Cousin Matt, also fishing from the bow, brought in a (slightly) more respectable striper.
It was still a nice day just to be on the water (actually an even nicer day as the wind had quietly died down), but now we had a few fish and fish photos to make our efforts legit.
Don’t be confused. I’m still my most comfortable with a hand hold and someone else tying knots, but the Khoury/Worth/Favor/Hurley clan had little trouble smiling for the camera.
