Planning on making a trip up that way here in next couple days, any reports from the mouth of South River? or better/different area I should target. Planning to take my Dad and son, so soaking baits will be the name of the game, no chasing bait with popping corks. Thanks for any tips!
Follow up, with the forecasted wind tomorrow, coming out of the south, how will the mouth of the river be? I would think since it’s coming out of the south, it would be fine... but don’t want to find out the hard way.
Windy showing like 10mph at the river, but 20+ off the beach. Not knowing the area all that well, been up there a handful of times, I don’t know what to expect... 10 wouldn’t keep me at home here in MHC.
You’re fine, go fish and have fun. South wind at 10-15 will have south river itself chopped up. Go out of the river and hang a left or a right and fish, you’ll be on the protected side of the neuse.
We are going to give it a shot, picked up some mullet today. Headed North-East around 3, fish 5 hours or so. Hope we pick one up for my dads sake, he'd love it!
Well, we got up there today around 430/5 and got lines in the water shortly after. Fished until about 9, had three Short/fast runs which I think where drum (question on that below) that didn’t come right, and another, much slower, which did and ended up being a small ray.
We where anchored on the east side of garbacon shoal, in about 6’ of water, dropped off to 12/14 maybe 50 yds away... Does that sound about right? We had a few other boats close by, so I feel like we where in the right spot.
Secondly, I was using bait runners, should I be? Or should I have just left the primary drag on... wondering if those three runs would’ve came right has the drag been tight, but who knows.
If you're using circle hooks Lupton rig ( mandatory ). Drag should be tight to set the hook as the fish swims away.
Also "rodney" is the best all time angler on my boat.
Bait runners / liveline reels are good for live bait & a float for more finicky fish. eg; Tarpon, Sails, Kings (???)
Old Drum are not shy....ICM
Yeah, using the Lupton rig with circle hooks, I will try to keep the drag tight next time and see if that helps. Guess I am just defaulting back to catfish in the rivers up north, and stripers in the bay, used the bait runner feature for both of those when fishing a similar method.... However, the weight in both of those situations slips on the line.
Another thing. Our baits we were checking baits every 20/30 min, almost every time the chunk was gone. I had assumed small fish and crabs are just picking at them... Is that normal? Or am I not rigging the chunks properly (through the back)?
Using mullet you need to be checking your lines every 10 minutes and even then it’ll come back in clean more often than not. I hate soaking mullet for that very reason. Fresh caught whole menhaden does much better as far as longevity goes.
As stated above definitely keep the drag at your fighting setting vs light.
Bait stealers are a constant issue with which you must deal. Fresher bait the better and sometimes when they are bad you'll have to almost constantly cycle through your rods putting on new baits....but if they suddenly stop be ready. did it seem like a very steep drop or gradual slope to deeper water. the steeper the better it seems to me. While you're fishing catch some of those nibblers and try them for bait. I've had times when cut pinfish out caught fresh mullet and menhaden. I usually slice the fins off their back which helps some scent get in water.
Fresh bait for sure, check every 10 to 15 minutes, rebait and recast. It is a pain but when the fish move in, you can have a couple of rods bouncing at the same time....then its organized chaos. So talk about how you are going to do rods and who is going to be the net man. Nothing like going round and round the boat chasing a fish...but a blast.
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