Tidelines – Winter 2014-2015
James (left), Owen (center), and Gary Hurley with a couple of the speckled trout they landed between eating donuts, drinking Powerade, and “racing” bobbers. They were drifting live shrimp in the Ocean Isle area with Capt. Kyle Hughes of Speckulator Inshore Fishing Charters.
Apparently you can lead your children to as many 2-3 lb. speckled trout as they can catch, but that still may not be enough to hold their attention for more than 30 minutes or so.
Capt. Kyle Hughes, of Speckulator Inshore Fishing Charters out of the Ocean Isle area, took my two eldest sons (ages 7 and 9) and I out to float some live shrimp under bobbers over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Kyle started us out between docks near an inlet where a shallow ledge next to deeper water had been holding trout fairly consistently. The trout, as he predicted, were in the shallower water, as they had been most of the fall, as opposed to previous years where more of the action had been in the deeper water.
James, after a successful cast and plying out line for the bobber to drift unencumbered with the incoming tide, hooked a trout on his very first drift—he saw the bobber go down, flipped the bail, lifted the rod tip, and started reeling a steady retrieve.
In the bow of the boat, James stood proud with the trout in the Boga grip, he and his new spotted friend posing for a quick photo. Then as the fish was being released, James turned to me with excitement in his eyes and asked a question he had been thinking about since he saw that bobber first go down. Was he asking for another live shrimp so he could catch another trout? No. He wanted to know if he could now have a donut.
To be fair, we had picked up our donuts that morning at the start of the drive from Wilmington, and to pace the donuts I had made the rule that the boys got one donut on the drive but couldn’t have a second donut until the first fish had been caught.
So James was playing by the rules, but I had thought that the quick action of a head-shaking trout after the visual reward of watching a bobber go under water would have been enough to delay donuts until the drifts were no longer producing.
Owen’s bobber went under, too, on the first drift, but either his trout was savvier or he was too slow on the bail, as the bobber reappeared without any tension on the line. So it was on Owen’s second drift that he landed his first speckled trout. He was also willing to make Dad happy by posing for a photo, but (like his brother) more eager to be done with the fish so he, too, could have his second donut.
The action as steady but the fish were running a little small, so Kyle decided to put us in some different scenery, one that also held the promise of larger trout. A quick ride south had us Power-Poled along a grass bank where we once again let the bobber drift out away from the bow of the boat. Kyle knows well the Ocean Isle waters, and at our second locale the bobbers, almost on command, repeatedly disappeared beneath the water’s surface.
Our captain was having one of his more successful and easier fishing trips of the fall, able to find quality fish immediately and only needing to look in two different places to find them, but neither Kyle nor the fish got top billing. This time it was the call of Powerade that competed with the boys’ attention.
My Fisherman’s Post DNA clearly doesn’t run overwhelmingly strong in the boys, but I still believe Kyle and I made progress in instilling a connection to fishing that I hope will emerge at its own pace when the boys are ready. That afternoon they each caught more trout then they could count, but they had just as much fun (if not more) taking turns netting each other’s fish and racing bobbers (yes, sometimes when the bobber went under they were actually disappointed that a fish had interrupted their race down the bank).
My thought is that many parents are in the same position as I—we want our kids to love fishing, but the kids may not yet be on that same page. Drifting a live shrimp under a bobber for speckled trout has to be one of the best ways to indoctrinate, and a trip with Capt. Kyle Hughes has to be one of the easiest.
I hope you enjoy our 2014-2015 winter issue. There’s plenty of fishing action to be found in this annual Boat Show issue, our largest of the year. In addition to our regular fishing reports, you can read about a marlin trip out of Oregon Inlet with the “Bite Me” crew. Or there’s more speckled trout action to be found out of Topsail, as Fisherman’s Post went fishing with Last Resort Charters and the owner of Blue Water Candy.
Finally, we offer a new travel piece in this issue. The Hurley family visited River Dunes near Oriental, NC, and targeted red drum with North State Guide Service.
Please remember that we take a brief hiatus after this issue—the next issue won’t come out until early March. During that time away from publishing, we will be hard at work on our saltwater fishing schools (four schools this year: Morehead City, Greenville, and two in Wilmington—a full day on a Saturday and a cheaper half day on a Sunday) and working the boat show circuit.
Keep us in the know by keeping those photos coming in. We’re already collecting for that March issue.
