Fishing on the White River (just inland from Emerald Isle) has been poor since all the rain from Rita and Tammy...(too fresh for anything but catfish and eels). At least that was the case up until this past weekend.
I went out Thursday morning about 3 miles up from Swansboro and was happy to see mullet minnows for the first time in weeks....happier to see something cutting through them in the shallows. I keep on rod ready complete with a Bass Assissin paddle tail electric chicken, which my family has had much sucess with. For a little while, every other cast brought in a speckled trout. I also hung, but lost, the biggest channel bass of the year that morning.
I called my son-in-law (Parrothead) who lives in Clayton and suggested he consider a weekend in Stella as the action was picking up again. (His preschooler son, Dylan, is a master angler in his own right, having caught a 30" puppy drum near Stella last Thanksgiving...we all remembered it as being a little smaller, but he insists it was 30") and Parrothead's wife was casting a cast net and catching puppy drum in the Emerald Isle surf when she was about six years old.
The son-in-law and grandson arrived in Stella Friday night and we got an early start Saturday morning.
We caught flounder, trout, channel bass, and even croaker, bluefish and a respectable large mouth bass during the day Saturday and again on Sunday. We both caught our first striped bass Saturday. It was a real hoot.
My wife joined us and caught her first specs on artificial lures (she prefers shrimp and minnows).
But what we were most excited about was the fact that, without fail, each and every fish landed had hit the Bass Assisin paddle tail shad in the electric chicken color. We were all amazed at it's success. I just returned from the local retailer where I purchased the last two 10packs of electric chickens. Can't wait till the weekend!
