Fishing inshore has been excellent this week. The specks are still hanging around the inlets up near the marsh grass and on colder nights moving into the nearby deep holes and channels. The water temps are in the mid 50's so you need to slow down your retrieve. I caught fish this week on Gulp! shrimp in several colors and on mirrolures - the MR808 is working best. Some of my buddies are using live shrimp under a popping cork and doing well.
Today as a buddy and I were fishing for specks near New Topsail Inlet, we had a great view of the ocean. It was almost flat as a lake with very little wind. After a while we could stand it no longer. We pulled up anchor and headed out of the inlet. With no real plan in mind, we rode out to a couple of reefs and ledges nearby. Pretty soon we were on top of a huge pile of black sea bass. I love to eat BSB and so does my buddy, so we decided to meat fish for a while.
We caught over 40 fish, keeping two limits (15 each). Most where in the 12-15 inch range. We were using sting silvers on our trout rods. What a blast and only three miles off the coast.
Someone had the bright idea of having a contest for the biggest and smallest fish of the day. I won one of the categories, bet the picture below gives you an idea of which one....lol
Were those stingsilvers chrome ? 2oz? factory treble hooks? Man, I need to get the lead out!!! I never considered them for BSB's. I'm glad to hear you weren't trying to catch 700lb tuna in that new Maycraft.:D
Sinkerman - actually we used some chrome Stingsilvers but I also use a "look alike" that are made by a guy in Raliegh and sold at Tex's Tackle. They are shaped like the stingsilver (the stubby version, gets down faster, the skinny ones are better for horizontal casting and jigging) but he paints them different colors. Yes, 2 ounce size, some with 4X trebles others I changed out the treble and put a single hook with a bucktail teaser. Color didn't matter yesterday. BTW - these work real well on gray trout too.
My buddy had never used vertical jigs for BSB either, his comment was - Wow - I wished I had known about this technique before I spent all that money on bait....lol. Now sometimes I do tip them with squid or cut bait if the bite is real slow - but with that comes sharks so I never start out tipping them.
Those little 1 or 2 oz diamond jigs are the heat for anything that lives on the bottom.
I have been using them for years catching BSB, Tautog, and trout. I tip mine with either a small piece of cutbait or some fish bites.
Topsail Fishing report
12-16-2006 10:39 PM
