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With the holiday season starting to arrive my calendar starts to fill up making trips to the trout hole more precious. Having an annual Thanksgiving dinner with friends on this past Saturday evening in Raleigh, I managed to squeeze in some time on the Bay River in Bayboro Saturday morning. My Nephew met me in Grantsboro, up from UNCW staying with my parents in Arapahoe. I have been catching a lot of trout on the river in decent sizes already this year. This morning would be no exception. This time of year I target creek mouths, and points with drop offs and areas holding bait. Basically "Trout holes"... With the competition from fellow recreational fishermen and inshore netting, it becomes challenging to find quality sized fish. I admit, I have been very fortunate to find trout over the past several years, but I distinctly feel the pressure after a week of netting when reports are good the week before and the bite significantly drops off. BUT, I usually don't let that worry me much. Like I said, I have been very fortunate to find them. We set out from Bay River Campground around 7 am. Wind was light out of the N/NE. With the majority of boats coming from the Bayboro launch and setting up at the mouth of Trent Creek, Chapel Creek, or the Punch Bowl. I set out to the right out Swindel Bay. Hitting the point we started throwing topwater and quickly changed to mirrolures as the water temp was around 52 degrees. I usually troll mirrolures once the water temp eeks below 60. My rule of thumb for color/size for mirrolures is start light(EC or CH colors) and large(17/27), especially if water clarity is good. I like EC MR 27/17 with flash tied to the tail hook. Today I start with MR17(EC) / MR14 (EC) neither with flash, my nephew start with MR 14 EC and MR17 808BG. The sun is up and bright, water is clear and cool...er. We manage a nice 17 inch'r before moving onto the next spot. A couple of passes with the lures trolling .7 to 1 mph, twitching the baits every so often provides a good indication if the fish are in the area. We move on to nice deep hole (6-8ft) with a lip of 3-4 ft deep. I manage another 17 inch fish on the first pass and then nothing. We move on... I fished the leeward side of creek channel that provides 3 fish on the first pass....FOUND THEM!! My fish bag fills up quickly as we approach our limit...2 18 inch'rs and big heart pumping fight with 22.5 inch'r that my Nephew landed. His first trout over 20 inches. Pass after pass we caught about 40 trout in 1.5 hours. 5 or so were under sized, the rest were 15-22 with all keepers over 18 inches and 3 over 20. As we had 2 slots left in the fish bag...I switched to MR 17 and MR 27 both in BKGCH with Chartreuse and flash tail hook that I tie. These were catching 3 fish to 1 that my nephew was catching. Now I consider myself a more experienced fisherman than him...25 years more time to fish...but I am not that good. LOVE this new color. I managed two more fish over 20 inches on this color/size combo. Approaching 11 am we had to start heading back to the landing 40 fish caught... 8 fat healthy specs in the cooler. The best day of trout catching my Nephew has had to date. Could not have planned it better. I passed "clane" on the way to the boat ramp...I clued him in on the location. I hope I left them biting for ya. I know they were there on Sunday morning when I caught 25 and put another 4 in my cooler, all over 18 with one 22 inches. Had my limit before 8am DST. I hope you enjoy the pics. The 2nd pic is Sunday's catch.
