Fall Fishing Thread 2023

Well, football isn't exactly giving us a compelling case to stick around the house on Saturday's. Fortunately for those of us who fish, the best time to get on the water is here.

Unfortunately, I had a poor effort this week. On Wednesday evening, I headed down to the Outer Banks to fish in front of Tropical Storm Ophelia. The bait situation wasn't what I expected. I managed to get a mess of large finger mullet on Wednesday night, but finding corncob sized mullet was impossible. Then, instead of getting up at 4:00AM on Thursday like I had planned, I forgot to set my alarm (first time ever on a fishing trip) and didn't wake up until almost 8AM. With the late start, I headed to the pier. The wind conditions were perfect, but the water was gin clear. I caught three spot before lunch time, but the only other thing in the ocean were miserable little three inch pinfish. I caught about a dozen, but there had to be thousands down there, as my fishbites got torn to pieces almost as soon as they hit the water. Otherwise, despite perfect conditions (onshore chop and clear water) for false albacore, bluefish, and spanish, there was nothing. Zero. Zilch. No bird life, no bait, no fun. So, despite the breeze picking up from about 10NE to 15NE, I decided to conserve my bait and get dinner. Leaving the pier, I saw a friend arrive, and I told him I would eat and maybe come back.

I grabbed dinner at the Dunes since it was close by. It was underwhelming (friend shrimp, fries, and slaw.) With a little food in me, I decided to head back to the pier, and it was a sound move. The drum started to eat around 7PM, and there was a lot of action, with one angler catching one large drum and three overslot/yearling drum (between 33 and 40 inches). Ten or so were caught total. The problem? I had those finger mullet and three spot. I got runs on all three spot heads, but the runs were slack bites (the drum picking the bait up to crush it and then swimming towards the pier.) I am a circle hook guy, and I was tired... not a good combination when you have to reel fast to get tight on a fish. All three failed to get the hook stuck. I didn't get any bites on the finger mullet. With the weather ominous for Friday, and with my frustration at a boiling point between the missed hookups and dealing with the OBX Aquarium folks coming out to close the pier at 9:55PM in the middle of a hot run, I made the foolish decision to dump my bait, get some rest, and then drive home before the storm got bad.

Dumb. The next morning between sunrise and 11AM, over 80 drum were landed at Nags Head Pier, and Jennettes was equally hot (although the folks I knew were at NHP.) So, paired with the heinous display of offensive line and tight end blocking we witnessed on Saturday, I have spent the weekend madder than a dog in a hubcap factory. Hopefully I can get back soon to redeem myself.

Post your fishing reports, gear and technique questions, and other fishing stuff below.