Added on Thursday, August 30, 2012  Gary Hurley

Guide Time – Fall to the Planks

We’ve seen the first north winds of the season, getting bait on the move, and much to eager anglers’ delight, hot fall fishing is mere weeks away. There are plenty of ways to celebrate the season, but perhaps one of the best (and drop the perhaps if you don’t have access to a boat) is to head out to one of NC’s ocean fishing piers.

What’s better than fishing a pier? Planning a weekend getaway to fish three of them! Though fishing piers seem to be disappearing about as fast as pay phones along our shores, Topsail Island’s lengthy beachfront still hosts three—Seaview, Surf City, and Jolly Roger.

Generously provided with a house for the weekend by the Medlin family of East Coast Sports and Island Real Estate, the Fish Post crew headed up to Topsail last fall to experience the autumn bite and unique character of each one of the island’s piers.

Joined by Fish Post friends Adam Meyer and John Carper, the employees—Gary Hurley, Joshua Alexander, and myself—headed up to Topsail on a Friday, rendezvousing at East Coast Sports for some tackle and tips before heading to nearby Surf City Pier.

After some friendly banter with the staff in the pierhouse, our motley crew strolled onto the planks at Surf City. Several healthy spot came sailing over the rails while we walked by, and a glance into the buckets and coolers of the anglers on the first half of the pier revealed plenty more of the tasty panfish, along with a mixed bag of sea mullet, croaker, and others.

Hands down, my favorite rig for fishing a pier when bluefish and spanish mackerel are around is a gold hooks rig, a series of gold hooks tied to dropper loops above a diamond jig or other metal lure (seven hooks for luck if I’m doing the tying). The rig is fished with no bait and a sweeping jigging motion of the rod. Practically irresistible to spanish mackerel and bluefish, the flash of the jig and accompanying hooks will tempt bites from just about anything that swims around the pier at one time or another.

I’d tied on one of my “lucky seven” rigs, and noticed Gary had also chosen the gold hooks approach to start with. While Adam and Josh joined in the steady pick of bottom feeders, sending down double-hook bottom rigs and cranking up spot and croakers, Gary and I began working the gold hooks through the clear green water.

As if bent on proving their appeal to multiple species, the two of us hooked pinfish, pompano, ladyfish, and bluefish within a quarter-hour of beginning to cast.

Most of the fish were on the small side, but the fast action and never knowing what the next bite will be kept Gary and I on the gold hooks program.

The steady pick of bottom dwellers continued for our compatriots fishing about midway down the pier, and Gary soon took a stroll down the pier to work the end. I was contemplating joining the bottom crowd when I looked up to see Gary grinning as he strolled down the pier with a spanish mackerel in his hands.

I immediately decided to join Gary at the seaward side of the pier and began jigging away as several of the other anglers had hauled spaniards over the rails as well. Soon I was rewarded as not one, not two, but three spanish mackerel appeared through the clear water, one tricked by the jig and the others by the flashing hooks. Stupidly, I tried to handline the fish up to the planks, but the trio proved too much for the 8 lb. line I’d spooled up with and they fell back to the water.

As the sun set, we left Surf City with a solid catch of spot, sea mullet, the spanish, and a few other random fish in our collective cooler.

Topsail Beach’s Jolly Roger Pier was on the next morning’s agenda. The sun was creeping up as we traveled south down the island, and the day had already begun by the time we finished delicious bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches from the pier’s grill and hurriedly slurped down some coffee.

We’d apparently missed our opportunity at a brief dawn spanish bite for anglers casting diamond jigs and Gotcha plugs at pier’s end, but apparently gold hooks rigs were on the bluefish’s menu for the morning, as they were in no short supply.

After seeing a fat flounder netted and plopped on the pier’s deck, Gary switched up to a Carolina rig and a live finger mullet. I soon saw him walking up with a look of defeat, and he acknowledged he’d lost a sizeable flatfish to a pulled hook before anyone was able to get a net under it.

The missed fish must have hardened his resolve to hook another, however, as he continued bouncing finger mullet around the bases of the pier’s pilings, brow furrowed determinedly.

Adam, John, and Josh were again busily tossing spot and sea mullet into a cooler on bits of shrimp and bloodworm fished on bottom rigs.

I stuck with the gold hooks rig, finding plenty of action with blues and some smaller fish, but nothing too noteworthy.

Returning to the gold hook program after lunch, I, and many of the other anglers on the pier, took fast notice of one angler who was putting bluefish and spanish mackerel (and often several of each at a time) in his cooler with amazing regularity. Though I tried to ape his retrieve exactly, somehow I was only hooking the occasional blue while fish after fish came over the rails and into his cooler. Perplexed, I studied further and realized he was using a 1.5 oz. diamond jig instead of my 1 oz. model, and hurried to the pierhouse to grab a few of the larger jigs, hoping the action would hold up.

The larger jigs improved my hookup rate for certain, but only with the blues, as the spanish school seemed to have moved on before I could get back.

The rest of the afternoon produced more of the same, but I got a slightly different strike while working the gold hooks as the sun sank low. After working the fish to the surface, I saw and felt the unmistakable headshakes of a speckled trout. Thanks to the help of one of the Jolly Roger regulars, my fish was soon taking an elevator ride in a pier net and flopping on deck.

The speck put the finishing touch on a day full of action on Jolly Roger’s planks and worn out from a day of sun, wind, and fish, we trekked back to the vehicles and a waiting meal before recharging for our next morning’s adventure, Seaview Pier in North Topsail Beach.

I awoke the next morning to the whistle of a stiff breeze, and after opening our rental house’s door, it was immediately apparent that a front had blown through while we slept.

A stiff northeast wind and an accompanying drop in temperature served to remind us it was indeed fall, and as we got to Seaview, the ocean reflected the change as well.

Instead of the decent swell and clean green water we’d fished the days before, a strong chop and heavy longshore current were now roiling the brown ocean.

Though not a good sign for the spanish mackerel/bluefish bite, it was impossible not to notice that the conditions had triggered the best spot fishing we’d yet to see, as dozens of spot at a time were emerging from the dirty water and flying over the rails.

Joshua and I set up just inside the king fishermen at pier’s end, and he immediately joined in on the action, hooking spot, pompano, silver perch, and other bottomfish as fast as he could get bits of shrimp on the hooks of a double drop bottom rig and a large sabiki.

After I grabbed a pair of the pier’s enormous breakfast sandwiches and brought one out to Josh, I tossed the gold hooks for a while and somehow a bluefish managed to find them in the murky water. After a strike-less half-hour, I decided something with a little scent would offer better odds of action and joined Joshua for some bottom fishing.

The murky water had more than just the spot on the feed, and several anglers live-baiting from the end of the planks mentioned that some huge red drum had been hooked lately. After two spot fishermen hooked and lost what would easily have been citation class reds judging by the boils they made on the surface, it was time to look for bigger game.

I tied a large circle hook on a bottom rig and baited up with half of one of the perch Josh had just caught and began trying to hook one of the reds myself. After around 15 minutes without a bite, I wanted to get back to action, and set the rod down with a loose drag.

Naturally, that’s when something large found my bloody bait, and I grabbed the rod far too late to stop the fish from heading under the pier to cut me off on one of the barnacle encrusted pilings.

Re-rigging, I then dropped a bait on the other side of the pier, hoping that if I was lucky enough to get another bite, perhaps the fish would head away from the structure instead of into it.

The plan failed, as another fish bit and headed straight beneath the planks.

This scenario repeated itself six times over the next several hours, and even though I grabbed a heavy baitcaster with 50 lb. braid, the fish easily overpowered the gear and broke me off on the pilings each time.

Apparently my big red wasn’t meant to be, but Josh’s efforts had our cooler practically overflowing with spot, pompano, and other critters, and the makings of a fish fry were ours.

With family obligations for Josh and Fish Post obligations for me, we reluctantly ended our Topsail getaway, returning to East Coast Sports to drop off our rental keys and talk the weekend’s fishing over with Chris Medlin before making the short drive back to Wilmington.

Our trip was typical of the fall action that Topsail piers boast, and all three offer a unique experience. First-timers to the island’s pier scene should undoubtedly try all three to figure out which pier’s regulars, rules, and customs suit them the best, as the fishing is fairly consistent between them all.

East Coast Sports is the definitive source for tackle and information on the island, and those in need of accommodations would do well to get in touch with Island Real Estate (conveniently located  in the same building), as they manage a variety of properties suited to just about all tastes and budgets.