Capt. Alan Caine
The weather this year has been the most inconsistent I’ve ever seen in 14 years of living in Wilmington, NC. Between 21 straight days of rain at one point and some very windy days it made the water really dirty. This made for some very challenging weeks of sight fishing and fly-fishing trips, and made us resort to bait fishing many days to make the trip successful. With that being said, on the good weather weeks the fishing was significantly better. If I’ve learned anything over the last 8 years guiding is that consistent weather equals consistent fishing.
The last few weeks the weather has really improved and now that we are approaching fall, it should get much more consistent. September-October are my favorite months of the year here in NC due to the typically good weather and great fishing for a variety of species.
The shallow water red fishing was a little off this summer. I know the weather was a factor but it seemed like a majority of fish were staying in deeper water in the creeks/rivers and around docks and other structure. This wasn’t a problem for conventional spin fishing trips, but made for tough fly-fishing. I’ve noticed lately though that more and more fish are moving up on the shallow flats and bays, and with the cooling temps we should see this trend continuing throughout the fall. The best sight fishing for redfish has been on the low tide, due to the lower water concentrating the fish and making it easier to see them. Our marsh is full of baitfish and small shrimp right now and the fish have been gorging themselves on this bait on the low tides when the bait can’t escape. Most days you will see them cruising shorelines with their backs exposed and tailing as they search for food. The fall is the best time of year to see this type of behavior from redfish.
The flood tide fishing for tailing redfish was also a little off this year compared to previous years, but that too is starting to improve and we are seeing significantly more fish in the grass lately. This is one of the easiest ways to catch a redfish on fly and is a very visual experience as you watch the fish rooting around for crabs in flooded grass with their tails sticking up out of the water. I only have 7 flood tides dates left open over the next 2 months, so if you’re interested in that let me know and I can get you the dates.
Fall fishing for the adult bull (15-40+lb.) redfish in the ocean around near shore wrecks and baitballs should start getting good late September-October. This is mostly spin fishing with bait or artificial lures, but with the right situation you can catch them on fly.
Flounder and trout fishing are both starting to improve lately as well with the vast amounts of bait around. There are some quality size trout being caught, which should mean the fall trout run should be really good. The best time to catch big numbers of trout on both fly and spin tackle would be late September-November.
We have also been catching some seasonal species such as jacks, ladyfish, tripletail, Spanish mackerel, and black drum. We typically don’t go out to target these species, but always take advantage of the opportunities when those species randomly show up.
Shark fishing has been good along the beaches and the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Most days you don’t even need chum, as any bait ball along the beach will have sharks cruising around it. For spin fishing trips any bait or lure casted to the sharks gets eaten almost immediately. For fly fishing trips we typically will use chum to bring the sharks in closer to the boat and up on the surface to get a better shot at them. This is typically easy fishing and a great way to test your fish fighting skills on a large fish. Some species such as blacktips and spinner sharks will jump and do flips in the air while you are fighting them.
One of my favorite seasonal species has just started to show up early. The Albacore are here, Based on their early arrival, I’m hoping this will be another great year for them.
False Albacore are very hard fighters and offer great targets for both the fly fisherman and light tackle spin fisherman. This is an exciting ‘run and gun’ style fishing in which we ride around the ocean looking for fish busting bait or birds hovering over bait balls which help us locate fish. Once located you run the boat up to the school to make the cast and after hooking and fighting a fish, you repeat the process. Other species you will sometimes catch in the same areas eating the baitballs are Spanish mackerel, jack crevalle, bluefish, ladyfish, and sharks.
The Albacore fishing should be good by mid September with late September-October being the prime season for them here in southern NC.
I only have 9 full days and a few 1/2 days left open through the end of October, so if you’re interested in coming down to fish this fall don’t wait to book a day.
I will be making my annual trip to Louisiana to guide for 3 months from November-January. This is all shallow water sight fishing with fly and light tackle gear for giant adult redfish in the Mississippi River delta. Louisiana is the undisputed “redfish capital of the world.” These are very uneducated fish that will eat any fly or lure presented to them.
Most days we go out with the goal of only targeting the 15-40-lb. adult redfish, but if you want the opportunity to rack up big numbers of fish, we can go into the small shallow bays and flats to catch all of the 5 to12-lb. fish you could want.
All this happens just 45 minutes from the great restaurants and nightlife of downtown New Orleans.
Open dates for LA redfishing:
November- 3, 30
December- 2, 6, 9, 16-19
January-5, 9-10, 15-18, 22-26
Capt. Allen Cain, 336-613-2975, www.sightfishnc.com