Northern Beaches – May 2023
Ward, of TW’s Bait and Tackle, reports that for surf anglers, dogfish sharks and skates have been filling out most of the action for weeks now, but there are some scattered puppy drum starting to be caught with cut mullet setups, and anglers getting out early are finding some speckled trout in deeper holes, mostly during the low-light hours.
Sound side fishing is also picking up (along with the water temperatures). Both puppy drum and trout have been more active in areas down around the inlet, and some nice sheepshead are also staging up around the bridge structure.
Nearshore has been a bit slow, but anglers are gearing up for the cobia migration that should be coming to the area at some point during May.
Offshore anglers have been doing really well on the tuna, and they are just starting to see scattered mahi mixed in.
Aaron, of Carolina Sunrise Charters, reports that puppy drum are staged along the shallows on the sound side, and they’re striking at soft plastics fished under popping corks.
Topwater plugs are starting to get better reactions from both the red drum and trout.
Anglers are also starting to see some sheepshead moving in over the inshore structure.
Ritchie Howell, from Wanchese, with a red drum caught in the Pamlico Sound on a spinnerbait. He was fishing with Capt. Grey Davis of Hyde Guides.
Ben, of Salty Waters OBX, reports that anglers have had plenty of recent success sight-casting to large schools of red drum up on the inshore flats.
Speckled trout are beginning to show up better in the area, as the fish are migrating in from across the sound and their back-of-creek wintering areas. Look for the trout to stage up on ledges and points in the marshes.
Bluefish are in abundance throughout the sound.
Sheepshead have moved in and are staging up around the local bridges, wrecks, and other hard structures.
Gerry, of Fishing Unlimited, reports that Little Bridge anglers have had some success catching trout, with early and late fishing times being the most productive. There are also some drum mixed in.
Speckled trout are feeding well further into the sound, such as down by the inlet and around Wanchese.
The northern beach surf anglers are seeing a good variety of trout, bluefish, blowtoads, and some sea mullet.
John, of Drumbeat Charters, reports that sight-casting anglers have been really focusing their efforts down south with the nearshore trophy red drum. These same tower boats are finding large black drum schools mixed in. As water temperatures warm up off Oregon Inlet, the schools of drum should start to swing up around the shoals and push up off the northern beaches.
Inshore fishing is picking up as we get later into spring. Speckled trout and puppy drum have been staging on the flats and ledges inside the inlet. The best areas to target have been the points or ledges that have current sweeping past. Recently, all it takes are Gulp swimbaits on lightly weighted jig heads to produce strikes from both species.
Jack, of Afishionado Charters, reports that with bluefin tuna finally headed out, the action has turned towards the push of yellowfin tuna moving into the region. Anglers running out of Oregon Inlet are finding most days to produce double-digit numbers of fish, along with scattered wahoo.
A few early season mahi have begun to trickle in, and moving into the later parts of next month, look for more consistent mahi action.
Offshore fishing in general should only get better as the Gulf Stream pushes out a cooler eddy of water that has been hanging just south of the area.
Andy, of Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, reports that the offshore fleet has been having some fantastic tuna fishing. Anglers are hitting their yellowfin tuna limit early, and they’re also finding massive citation blackfin tuna and bigeye tuna (to 120+ lbs.).
Some mahi are also starting to mix in, and anglers look forward to more mahi showing up with water temperatures warming offshore.
The counts have also seen scattered wahoo, king mackerel, and sailfish releases.
Meredith, of Pirate’s Cove Marina, reports that tuna fishing has been awesome. Yellowfin and large blackfin tuna continue to make up the majority of the daily dock counts.
Anglers are starting to mix in some mahi, and the mahi numbers only get better as we move towards the summer months.
Wahoo and some blue marlin releases are also being reported.
Jim, of Nags Head Pier, reports that anglers have been catching some nice sea mullet and shad while bottom fishing.
Scattered speckled trout are also showing up.
Chrissie, of Avalon Pier, reports that some crystal-clear water that showed up was nice to look at, but it seemed to slow down the bite a little.
There have been some nice catches of red drum, sea mullet, and scattered bluefish, though.
Anglers overall have seen action starting to pick up in the area, with water temperatures on the beach steadily creeping up.
Fisher Gilman (age 15), of Charlotte, NC, caught this sandbar shark while soaking bait on the Point in Hatteras.
Paul, of Bob’s Bait and Tackle, reports that surf fishing is finally starting to kick off up on the northern beaches, with water temperatures moving more action up from Hatteras Island. Anglers are starting to catch some nice puppy drum while fishing cut baits. These same bottom-rigged mullet will also attract strikes from the dogfish sharks that linger around.
Sea mullet are starting to show up in the action for anglers fishing bottom-rigged shrimp.
The bite throughout the sounds is also picking up. Red drum and speckled trout are being caught by anglers fishing holes and flats down closer to the inlet.
Good-sized sheepshead (to 10 lbs.) are also in that same area, as they are moving inshore and setting up on and around various hard structures.
