[Nickp]

Well long story short the wife's headed out for AT for the next 3 weeks so I won't be seeing her. So quick surprise trip to the beach to relax before sleeping In tents in the heat with full gear. Anyway I promised her I wouldn't bring the kayak or even a rod. Well only place that had rooms was Oceanana hotel. Well they have a pier. So I begged and one rod came along and a TINY bit of tackle. Anyway never pier fished. So went out at 5am. Nada. Saw 1 or 2 caught and was told I need to be out before sun up for Spanish.
Any pointers here for tomorrow morning or tonight? I have a few gotcha plugs already.
Thanks as usual.

 

[Shakespeare]

I've been further south down in N. Topsail Beach this past week and pre-dawn has been best for the Spanish bite. You may get the occasional blue or Spanish during the day with the Gotcha plugs but it all depends on water clarity and so forth. For basic pier fishing I always like to take a small rig with #4 or #6 hooks for catching croakers and grunts. A larger bottom rig will hopefully catch anything bigger. Tide plays a big part and there will be certain times during the cycle where things come to a dead stand still and other times will be a furry of catching going on. In my experience a couple of hours before high tide has been the best producer but to contradict that I've seen the best flounder catching at dead low tide. As said above it all depends on a lot of things. You can catch a lot right behind the breakers and if you move down pier get into something totally different near the end.

 

[RouseD]

Let us know how you do Nickp, and good luck. Hope you do well.

 

[Nickp]

Well went out at 4am and just got back. Caught more blue fish then I can count from small snapper size to decent 16in fish. One after the other for a while. Bite got good around 6:30 then slowly tapered off. Saw 4 Spanish pulled up but that was it for them.
All in all a blast. My brother also surprised me and showed up for the fun

 

[philjam]

Last week I was there and had blues like you described. Also got a mess of pigfish and puffer closer to the breakers. Fished a grub in the wash and had a nice puppy drum on briefly - that was around sunset. Variety is the spice of life!