Black drum in the ICW near Beaufort, NC

I took my Hobie out a couple of days ago and drifted from Bell Creek on the ICW to Beaufort. I started out fishing for red drum using top and suspending lures at the edges of a salt marsh and caught nothing. Then I jigged for awhile and still caught nothing. There were folks on a couple of other boats near that same location who also seemed to be after some red drum, and I didn't see any of them pull in any either.

Finally I gave up on red drum and put on a flounder rig baited with FishBites and set myself adrift toward Beaufort on an outgoing tide. (I had purchased the FishBites on an impulse and at the time had no particular use in mind for them.) At first nothing but small croakers bit. Then, as I was drifting past a sandy/hard mud beach, I got a tug that initially made me think I was hung. Soon the line moved and I pulled in a 17- or 18-inch black drum. He wasn't a record setter, but he was large enough for dinner.

Instead of going back to the beginning of that beach and covering that same turf over again, I continued drifting and pedaling toward Beaufort, but nothing else interesting happened that day. Might go out and re-visit that spot again today.