The inshore and backwater fishing has been good to excellent lately.  This trend should continue through the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  The redfish and striper fishing will continue throughout the winter and can be incredible in the months of January and February.  Hopefully we’ll have a mild winter and there will be some good fishing opportunities throughout the winter months.

The redfish bite has been great on the smaller fish and the larger fish have been harder to find recently.  There are some larger reds on the flats and the sightfishing is good when conditions are right, which has been a rarity lately. We are also finding some slot sized reds mixed in with the smaller ones in the creeks of the lower Cape Fear River.  Gulp Shrimp and DOA paddletails are working well, but fresh shrimp and live mud minnows have produced most of the action lately.

The speckled trout fishing has been good throughout the Cape Fear area.  From Wrightsville Beach to Southport, nice specs are being caught in large numbers.  Almost all of these fish have been keepers with some nice three to four pound fish in the mix. We have had some really good days on a variety of baits.  DOA fluketails, paddletails, mirrolures, Billy Bay Shrimp on popping floats, live minnows and shrimp have all produced some good numbers of specs on my charters recently.  The trout fishing should continue through December and possibly longer depending on water temps.

We are catching some nice black drum mixed in with the reds, which has produced some incredible action on light tackle.  These fish have been in the three to five pound range, a blast to catch on light tackle and are great to eat.  All of the black drum have been caught on fresh or live shrimp on carolina rigs.

The striped bass fishing is starting to turn on in the upper Cape Fear River around Wilmington.  This is a catch and release fishery and they are an absolute blast  to catch on light tackle, especially topwater plugs. A good number of stripers have been in the six to twelve pound range.  Shallow and deep diving plugs, swimbaits and topwater plugs have all produced some good action.  We occasionally pick up some redfish and speckled trout on the same lures while fishing for stripers.

The whiting are also starting to show up up along the Cape Fear River channel.  Dropping two hook bottom rigs baited with fresh shrimp can put good numbers of these fish in the cooler.  Whiting pound for pound are one of the hardest fighting fish, fun to catch and great to eat.  We also pick up a few gray trout while fishing for whiting.

The flounder are starting to move out, but we are still picking up a few flounder on Gulp Baits and live minnows while fishing for redfish and speckled trout.  
The next couple of months are shaping up to produce some great fishing opportunities on the lower Cape Fear and hopefully the weather will cooperate.  Speckled trout fishing will continue through December and possibly longer.  Striped bass fishing is here and will continue throughout the winter.   The abundance of smaller reds in the area will be growing to slot fish and the larger reds will school up and we should experience some good winter fishing.

Thanks for reading the report and check out the photos from the past couple of weeks.  I should have a good report for the next couple of weeks.

Thanks,
Jeff Wolfe
Seahawk Inshore Fishing Charters
North Carolina Inshore Fishing Blog
910-619-9580