[NCangler]

NCangler.com moderator Jeff O (Jeffonc) and I headed to Oriental today to spend the afternoon fishing with Capt. Dave Stewart of Minnesott Beach Bait & Tackle/Knee Deep Charters for some old red drum on the Neuse River. It was to be our warmup trip for a week in Oriental leading up to the first annual NCangler.com Oriental Meet & Greet. That plan changed however when hurricane Irene started focusing on the coast of the Carolinas. Late Tuesday we decided it best to cancel the Saturday event and try again in a few weeks. However, today was about fishing with Capt. Dave!

The wind was blowing pretty good when we left Capt. Dave's at Minnesott Beach and after anchoring up on two spots with no bites we settled in on a third site and proceeded to boat four nice fish before heading in before sunset.

Jeff caught his first ever old red drum, a beautiful 48.5" female.

Jeff's smile says it all!

I followed that fish with my largest male old drum to date, a 48.5" beauty!

I followed that up with a 38" male who put up a great fight and Jeff ended up with a 40" male that took awhile to get to the boat.

Capt. Dave put us on some beautiful fish and was a joy to fish with. If you're interested in catching one of these beautiful fish give him a call to schedule a charter. You won't regret it! ​

Now that we got in some fishing, Wednesday will be spent preparing for the coming storm. Be safe all!

 

[sundrop]

great day on the water!!!

 

[Scott Hobbs]

Great catches and congrats to Jeff's first big boy, bet it won't be his last trip chasing them.

Cpt Dave is good people...

<*))))>{

 

[Muddy Water]

Nice going guys! Hope to try my hand at 'em one day.

 

[sundrop]

Muddy let me know when ya wanna go. Youre close to me so we can leave from here and hit Oriental or Bay River

 

[driver]

Lucky Dogs!
I was hoping to be doing that this weekend... But this big bad woman named Irene won't let me go.

 

[Island Man]

Man your killing me, anyone up for a quick trip to oriental today...........seriously?

 

[georgep]

Thanks for the pics and post guys, really glad you'll could find some nice Ole Drum

 

[NCPIERMAN]

awesome job randy congrats on the sweet bulls im gonna get out there sooner or later before they disapear and try to get ruth on one

 

[Stew-Rat]

Awesome fish for sure. What a treat! Congrats to you both.
(and Jeff for whatever diet he`s on. He`s looking lean and mean)

 

[max2599]

Randy and Jeff, congrats to you for landing 4 of these absolutely spectacular old drum! Capt. Dave is such a great guy and is happy to give anyone advice on how to fish the beautiful Neuse River. The meet and greet sounds like a wonderful idea! Please keep us posted.

max2599

 

[Jeffonc]

Follow up report from the hitch-hiker on this trip.

Home page hair courtesy of Buff Headwear. I like the extra sun protection but am not used to how it looks on. Didn't turn off the old red drum, so maybe not as bad as I think...

Like a rookie, I lost my tackle monkey hat as soon as the boat hit the wind. Captain Dave hooked me up - I assume that's a picture of him, pre-beard. Time for v2 on those hat graphics... or maybe a shave.

I tried to get some action photos of Randy's drum - didn't come out great. His 2nd fish had some nice spotting on the tail and didn't get that at all. Still cool to see a beast coming up out of the water.

My 2nd fish, a 40" male fought way harder than the 48.5" female. He 'bout ran over to Captain Gary Dubiel's boat way off in the distance. I asked Captain Dave to give Gary a call and ask him to pick it up and save me all that reeling, but no dice.

Randy and I were both more than happy to head in and give Captain Dave an early evening ahead of his morning charter once we had both caught 1 big fish. It was already a successful trip, everybody caught fish, 2 citations, got pictures, and everything fair and square. Captain Dave wouldn't hear of it and made us stay out and catch more fish... 2nd fish were both unhooked and released in-water.

It really was a fantastic trip. Our Irene prep didn't save the coast, but surely saved some of the loose outdoor items that we got safely stored. Hope I can get back down in the next few weeks to help with some cleanup and maybe get Captain Dave to take us on a New Bern rockfish hunt!