OBX Report

[jifigz]

I just got back last night from spending roughly a week in Corolla. I fished when I could but this was not a fishing trip so I didn't get a ton of angling in. I didn't fish the sound at all or end up renting a kayak and all of my fishing was done in the surf.

I caught all of my fish on clouser minnows. The water was 80° for a few days and then suddenly and rapidly dropped to 58° which basically shut the fishing down for us. During our first few days there my soon to be brother-in-law and I found plenty of small bluefish busting balls of bait and being voracious eaters. I found that I had more success by scaling down the size of my clousers. The only problem was that many of my books were not tough enough and at one point fishing a small size 10 clouser my hook broke in half on my best fish of the trip. I landed quite a few blues in the 10-14" range and, although small, fought quite well. I also bagged one decent Spanish Mackerel. Colors that got it done were olive/white, chartreuse/white, green/white, and pink/white. I had some larger 2/0 hooks that were actual saltwater hooks so I ended up fishing larger patterns than I wanted.

Towards the end I tied some smaller basic marabou streamers with a lot of flash with heavy tungsten beads but by this time the water had cooled and the fish seemed to vanish. I bet they would have outfished the clousers, however. We kept a bunch of blues and mackerel and all were delicious. To anyone going down soon I recommend morning and evening and smaller patterns. Good luck.

 

[tztrout]

Great report! Headed there next week so I will put this info to good use. Spanish at the top of my wish list, but may target reds in the Sound of time allows.

 

[tomgamber]

SWEET! GOOD INFO. GLAD YOU GOT INTO THEM.

 

[Dave_W]

Good info.

Regarding the situation with your flies: were these originally tied for freshwater? If so, I recommend going with sturdier hooks made for saltwater as these fish, even the little ones, are much tougher on terminal tackle than freshwater fish.

Also, bluefish of all sizes are "chomp" feeders meaning they tend to seize flies in the back half or mid-section. For little snapper blues, "nippers" better describes their feeding style. Stripers, by contrast, suck their prey in head-first like a smallie so I tie my striper flies with a single hook set near the front of the fly.

For blues, including big ones, I like a single, very sturdy, barbless hook with a good sized shank (at least an inch long). If the blues are little snapper guys, the fly should be 1-2" and have the hook at the rear. If big chopper blues are around, I like the fly much larger but use a steel shank or some system that places the hook in the back half of the fly. This will improve hookups. You want a longer shank as getting the hooks out of a blues' mouth usually takes pliers (leave your hemostats at home) and the shank gives you something to get a grip on.

If you've ever seen the wreckage left by feeding blues - lots of fish chopped in half, even small ones - you will immediately note the need to have your hooks arranged further back in the fly.

 

[jifigz]

Dave,

Yes, the hook that snapped in half was originally a size 10 clouser tied for freshwater. I downsized and tried that fly because I noticed the baitfish that they were feeding on were much smaller. I had landed several blues on these smaller freshwater hooks so I rolled with it. The fish that broke the hook in half had some serious heft compared to the others and that's when I went back to the larger and much tougher hooks.

Thanks a bunch everyone. Fly fishing the surf was fun but boy was It a workout. I used a 9' 9 weight. I felt like a MLB pitcher after a few sessions and my fingers started to develop some serious blisters and indentations from handling the line. It was fun but I think that I'd rather be fly fishing for smallies or something. There are definitely other types of saltwater fly fishing that I'd like to pursue, however.