Swansboro June 8, 2006
Stan, of Captain Stanman Charters, reports that the D and E buoys are holding the largest cigar minnows for this early in the year. Get your sabiki rigs out and start jigging them. Kings and dolphin prefer live bait to dead, but on rare occasions they will eat the dead bait and not the live.
Dolphin are moving in to S/E Bottoms, the Honey Hole, Christmas, and the Rock S/E of the 13 buoy (the 13 buoy has been removed). On Sunday the water temperature at the Swansboro Rotary AR was 74 degrees. Optimum water temps for dolphin are 72-78 degrees, and the avoidance temp is 82 degrees.
Boats running to the gulf stream, Swansboro Hole, the Rise, etc. are catching dolphin in the 30 lb. class and some wahoo.
The cobia bite is still going on and has another week or two before peaking. The inshore AR’s and their buoys should be harboring some. You also want to work the inlets, especially Barden’s at Cape Lookout.
Jeff, of FishN4Life Charters, reports that the summer flounder are biting well along the nearshore ARs and live bottoms. Although live bait is the standard, don’t forget to bring along a few 1.5 oz. bucktails or jigheads and some Gulp baits as the flounder will pounce on this bait jigged off the bottom while slowly drifting an area. Places to try will be Tom Smith Rock, Keypost Rock, Station Rock, Bear Rock, Lost Rock, East Rock, SE Bottoms, and all of the Artificial Reefs.
The spanish mackerel bite has been good along the beach out of Bogue Inlet in 25-40’ of water. Most of the spanish are in the 12-18” range. The bite has been off and on using shallow and deep diving lures, but it’s been more consistent on the dependable clark spoons trolled behind trolling weights or planers.
The king mackerel have been biting well around the AR’s and live bottoms nearshore, with more fish being caught on cigar minnows and shad than on deep diving lures. Be sure to bring a few sabiki rigs along to jig up some live baits in the area you are fishing (in order to match what the fish are feeding on). There have been plenty of baits showing up on AR 345 and the C-Buoy.
Cobia are still showing and will continue to appear along any nearshore structure and flotsum throughout June. They are very curious fish and will often surface around any structure on top of the water including your vessel. They love a live bluefish, shad, and most live fish light-lined back to them. They will also munch on live crabs, squid (especially tipped on a big bucktail), and stripped albacore.
The sheepshead bite continues to be sporadic, with dock and bridge pylons as the main areas to target. Fiddler crabs can be found on the mud and sand flats or around the edges of the marsh shorelines at the lower end of a falling tide.
The summer and southern flounder are scattered all over the inlets, ICW, main connecting channels, Bogue Sound, the lower end of White Oak River, and Queens Creek. Typically the bigger flounder are more structure oriented and like to lay around these areas as they hold much more bait fish and provide ambush points, unlike the sandy main channels where more small fish are caught.
The redfish can be found from the beaches to the creeks up the river and sound right now. A good rule is to target the flooded marsh shorelines and the covered oyster beds during high tide and target the edges of grass flats and oyster beds as well as any ICW structure and docks on low tide.
There have been some black drum around the bridges in Swansboro. You’ll want to fish a 2 oz. or better sinker to get your live fiddlers or sand fleas to the bottom in the current. Most of these drum have been from 1 to 3 lbs.
Mike, at Bogue Inlet Pier, reports that it has been a good weather week, but the biting has been a bit slower.
A 41 lb. cobia was caught last week. King mackerel are showing up at Station Rock, which is 5 miles from the pier, so it shouldn’t be long before the reels and lines on the end of the pier are screaming.
Sea mullet, blues, and pompano are around. For the early birds, a few spanish can be caught in the mornings. The water has been a beautiful blue-green color with water temperatures reaching a warm 81 degrees.
