Good week fishing the surf and sound at OBX

[GonnaFlyNow]

I just came back from the outer banks. The week started with me landing a sea mullet from the surf. This was a first with my fly rod and I also used a fly I tied. It was only about a 12 inch fish but I was happy to see my fly get some action. I ended up taking two sea mullets and a flounder from the surf. Also, I tied some clousers that had some nice action as well. I had two fish that broke off the line. The first broke a 12 lb line. The second time around, I put a clouser on a steel leader with 12 lb test only losing it after getting it close to shore. I thought I had this one as I fought it for about five minutes and thought the rig would hold. I am not sure what these two fish were but breaking 12 lb line, at the end of a stout 3 ft leader, is impressive. I saw some pretty large stuff lurking in the surf. I ran into something that looked to be about 2 to 3 ft long as it rolled over in the water right at my legs. I ran about as fast as I could as it scared the hell out of me. I also had something pop up in the surf while we were catching some waves. I just saw a flash of fish that was about 6” x 6”. I didn’t get a good look except for the small part that was visible but, I knew it was big. This was the first time I really payed attention to stuff I am swimming and fishing with.

I saw birds diving at fish all week. Additionally, the fishing boats were right behind them coming as close to shore as they could. I knew the sweet spot was somewhere between where I could get my line out and where the fishing boats were allowed to come inshore. Anyway the flocks of birds were the key to finding bait fish and game fish.

Thursday the family went out on the sound in a pontoon. We drifted and fished for a while. We caught a small fish that looked like a sun fish with some cool strips on it. We also had a nice set-up on the sound. We were fishing the small schools of bait fish with some larger fish swimming around. We were trying to pick off a few larger fish that were feeding on the smaller baitfish. It seemed like a great situation as we had fish swimming all around us and fish slashing left and right. However, all I came away with that day was the one small fish.

No lunkers landed this time but I had some moments that were really cool and well as a few fish which are always hard to catch from the surf. Also, I saw a water spout over the sound that was later reported on the news.
Cheers,

 

[geebee]

sounds cool. any idea what the big fish were ?

 

[GonnaFlyNow]

geebee,

I have a few ideas. At first I thought maybe it could be a striper. But looking at the fishing reports, it didn't seem like anyone was catching stripers. If I were to guess, I might say if was a ray as they come in fairly close or large drum or cobia as these are around this time of year. I would not rule out a small shark as there were many caught in the surf the weeks before in that area.

It's interesting that I would see large glassy looking circles throughout the day. At first I thought these might be the result of the waves breaking and then the back wash creating the glassy patches as some waves did. However, I noticed that some of these glassy patches stayed out about 5 ft and continued to drift out and turned. Then I realized that a fish or group of fish were making these patterns. Some stayed around for 5 to 10 minutes. I cast in front of the moving patches. One of the two lines that broke off were around this pattern. I don't recall if both were. Also, The charter boats in the water were getting so close to shore that I had people waving and saying hi to me. Some boats were very aggressive. At one point, I counted about 30 boats no further out than the near by pier extended into the water. It looked like a lot of action was around the shore over the last few weeks.

 

[Dave_W]

Hhmm....
Interesting. There are usually good numbers of tarpon in that area this time of year and perhaps the circles could have been daisy chaining tarpon, especially if you saw large fish that were silvery.

Schools of mullet or other baitfish like needlefish may also have been making surface disturbances.

 

[GonnaFlyNow]

Dave,

You are right there were baitfish schooling around and the larger fish where attracted by the schooling baitfish. I am assuming a large fish or a few larger fish made the glassy circle because I didn't see any smaller disturbances within the larger glassy pattern like you would see in a school of blue fish. This looked like one big 3 ft smooth swirl moving around the shore line. Are you saying some fish can move together this way? This is all very interesting as it is only the second year I have fished the surf. This time I was more tuned in to watching the water movement.

Unfortunately, surf fishing is hard and I only get a short window of time to try to learn from it. Some days 1 to 3 bites is all I will get. In any case, this is a lot of fun trying to figure these things out. I will at some point put it all together and land something really big from the surf.

Thanks,

 

[sarce]

Dave W may be on to something with the tarpon. They would make short work of breaking 12 lb line. Need minimum 30 lb to handle them. Brutally strong fish, I've hooked a couple small (5-15 lb) ones but never landed one.

Could also have been bluefish that cut your line. I have seen a few feeding frenzies of bluefish in OBX.

 

[sandfly]

Tarpon ! might even be in jersey this past week. they are catching all kinds of warmer water fish now. even dolphin (mahi mahi) on the beach.

 

[geebee]

yes, I think those circles are baby tarpon.

when I worked in George Town in Grand Cayman the fish 'daisy chained' in the town harbor all the time. when my wife came to visit we snorkeled amongst them and saw the chains from underneath which was pretty cool.

they do it even when there is not bait around. these baby tarpon were about 4ft, 30lb ish. I think they like it.

imho a big blue will grab and cut your line instantly or you'll have him. I have landed them on 20lb fluoro several times up to 13lb. if the fish grabbed and was on for a few seconds it was likely his weight not his teeth.

sounds fun either way.

 

[gutcutter]

GonnaFlyNow wrote:

It's interesting that I would see large glassy looking circles throughout the day. At first I thought these might be the result of the waves breaking and then the back wash creating the glassy patches as some waves did. However, I noticed that some of these glassy patches stayed out about 5 ft and continued to drift out and turned. Then I realized that a fish or group of fish were making these patterns. Some stayed around for 5 to 10 minutes. I cast in front of the moving patches. One of the two lines that broke off were around this pattern. I don't recall if both were.Also, The charter boats in the water were getting so close to shore that I had people waving and saying hi to me.

I doubt that they were tarpon. If they were, you would know it. They wouldn't have just broke off. You would have seen them in the air, briefly, before they broke off.