Tidelines – September 2022
As it often goes the night before a fishing trip, I woke up about an hour ahead of my alarm, couldn’t get back to sleep, and basically laid there awake until the alarm finally went off at 3:30 am.
My brother-in-law, JJ Khoury, pulled in right on time, just a few minutes before 4:00, so we were on the road and on schedule to meet Capt. Brad Smith, of Gunny B Outdoors, at New Bern’s Lawson Creek Boat Ramp for a morning of throwing popping corks for the citation red drum that had been frequenting many upriver spots in the weeks, or at least the week, prior to our morning.
Our early, 5:30 am meet time, Brad explained, was for a couple of reasons—we would beat the crowds of mid-morning, we would beat the heat of the afternoon, and the morning bite had been a better bite.
Brad runs a 24’ Blue Wave Pure Bay with a 300 hp Suzuki, so it took us very little time to run to an area down towards the ferry line on the south/southwest side of the Neuse River that historically holds bait and fish. After two drifts, though, it was clear that there was no bait, no birds, no fish—basically, no life.
A quick run to a second location, this one even further downriver, had the same result.
“Since May this spot has been slammed full of bait and fish,” Brad told us as he holstered the trolling motor to make a third run, “but it’s just not here. It doesn’t feel fishy today.”
At our third stop, we were doing a slow cruise in about 8’ of water hoping to see something, anything, to get us excited, and then we finally did see something—two pods of bait between us and the shoreline, the first bait we had seen all morning.
The random flips and flickers of smaller (3-4”) menhaden was what caught our eye, but as we got closer, the bait pods got more active. The random flips and flickers turned into repeated, numerous, and nervous flips and flickers, and we also watched the surface activity being pushed towards the shallower water.
And then the bait started getting crushed by big fish. Lots of water was being pushed, bait was seen flying in all directions, and there were obvious streaks of attacking fish slamming through several pods of bait at the same time.
All three of us were sure that our baits would get pulled under just as soon as they hit the surface, so we sent our cork rigs flying towards the mele. Nothing. No pull downs. No hits. There were more meles, more crushing of baits, but nothing wanted to play with us.
Brad scaled down our soft plastics a bit to try and match the smaller size of the baits that the fish were keyed in on. For JJ, he tied on a 4” Z-Man Golden Boy DieZel MinnowZ, and he replaced my DOA Airhead with its wider profile for a slimmer 4” Slam Shady DieZel MinnowZ.
JJ got the first bite and I got the second bite, but our bites were from slot drum. The big reds had pushed the bait to the slot red drum that were hugging the shoreline. Those two slot drum were the only action we generated before the bite, and the bait, stopped in every direction.
Everything was suddenly quiet, so Brad started slow cruising again, pushing away from the 1-3’ of water and out to 6-7’ of water where we had first seen the big reds working the bait. We weren’t seeing bait, birds, or fish, but we had just had visual confirmation that old red drum were in the area, so we started fan casting our popping cork rigs.
JJ, again, got the first bite. His cork disappeared and drag was screaming.
“I set that drag to 10 lbs.,” was Brad’s answer when JJ asked if this was an old drum pulling drag. “That’s a big fish.”
JJ’s fish was running off the stern, so I kept casting off of the front, hoping to get a second hookup. Brad stood a little behind JJ, pulled out his phone, and started recording video. For his videos, Brad likes the angle of the bent rod and the sound of screaming drag, as it makes for a good memory for the client, and it also keeps his rod sponsor (Bull Bay Tackle) happy.
JJ successfully guided his big red into Brad’s landing net, we took a measurement, some quick photos, and then made sure the fish swam off in good condition.\
JJ Khoury (right) and Gary Hurley (left) with a double hookup of citation red drum. They caught the old drum on soft plastics under popping corks while fishing in the Neuse River with Capt. Brad Smith of Gunny B Outdoors.
During JJ’s battle with the 45” fish, the bait and birds reappeared all around us. We began working one of the nervous bait pods, and that strategy worked. I came tight to what would be my first big red drum of the day.
I noticed on my big fish that Brad once again pulled the hook out of the fish’s mouth while it was in the landing net in the water and not once the fish was in the boat.
“I want to keep human hands off that fish as much as possible,” he explained when I asked. “I also want to get the fish back in the water as soon as possible once I put it in the boat.”
We got more bites off of more bait pods, or rather JJ got more bites off more bait pods, and while we knew it was time to head back to the dock (I had a deadline to get back to Wilmington to see my kids play in their first Laney High School soccer games of the season), it was just too hard to leave actively feeding fish.
JJ got yet another bite, and once again the fish moved him towards the back of the boat. I kept casting off the bow, and this time I found a second fish while JJ was hooked up. We had successfully generated a double hookup of citation drum on artificials.
None of us wanted to leave, but Brad rationalized that a double hookup meant our day had hit its apex, so we made peace with stowing the rods and heading back to Lawson’s.
Gary Hurley (left), of Fisherman’s Post, with his first citation drum of the 2022 season. He caught the 45″ fish using a Z-Man 4″ Slam Shady DieZel MinnowZ under a popping cork while fishing with Capt. Brad Smith (right), of Gunny B Outdoors.
Capt. Brad Smith, of Gunny B Outdoors, will spend most of his September and early October chasing old red drum in the Neuse River, but with Maysville as his hometown, it’s just as easy for him to run to Swansboro to head nearshore for spanish and kings or offshore for grouper and beeliners.
If that type of love for fishing and that effort and willingness to seek out the best experience possible for his clients sounds like a guide you’d like to fish with, then you can find out more information at www.gunnyboutdoors.com or call him directly at (803) 920-5501.
