Outer Banks Surf Fishing Info

By Joe Malat

February 25, 2010

Winter is a slow time for fishing along the Outer Banks, but periods of moderate weather and calm conditions will often encourage some fish to bite.  Throughout the winter I will be submitting regular updates as often as there is some fishing news to report, but it may not be every week.

This winter I will be trying something new to get us through these slow fishing times. Every week I will be posting a new "how-to" article.  They will be a series of articles with tips that should be helpful to surf, pier and small boat anglers. Your feedback on these would be appreciated, and if you would like info about a specific topic, let me know. I will try to do requests as much as possible.  I've already heard from a few readers and I appreciate your comments.

There was a brief window of pretty weather this week, and a few fish did cooperate in the surf.  Some puppy drum were caught by the very few anglers fishing on Ocracoke, I did not hear of any other fish on the beaches.  The ocean temperature in Duck remains at a chilly 39 degrees.

When the weather will allow boaters to leave the dock, they have been enjoying some very good action with striped bass.  Early this week, the charter boat Poacher, with Capt. Devin Cage racked up some great catches of stripers.  Anglers took home their limits and released lots more fish. Some of the stripers hit the 30-pound mark and most were caught trolling. Contact Devin Cage at 252-473-6108 to book a striper trip aboard the Poacher.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the boaters will get any relief any time soon.  Right now the wind is honking out of the northwest and there's a gale warning for this afternoon and tonight, with the possibility of some soundside flooding.  Wind chills tonight will be in the teens.

The spring surf fishing season will kick off soon enough, so I thought it might be a good idea to revisit a subject that's been discussed previously in this column: how to find fish in the surf by "reading the beach."  It's the most frequently asked question at my surf fishing schools, and recently I received a couple of requests to mention it again.

Reading the beach is not difficult, it just requires some observation, and a little bit of "on the job" training. The key to finding fish is locating sections of beach that are most likely to attract fish.  These fish frequently come into the surf zone seeking food such as small fish, or crabs and sandworms that burrow down into the sand.  The breaking waves and strong currents may cause this food to get uncovered and stirred up in the dynamic mix that's created where the ocean meets the sand.

A slough, pronounced "slew", is a trough of deep water that usually runs parallel to the beach with an oceanside boundary defined by a sand bar. The distance from the beach to the bar determines the width of the slough. Shallow areas, shoals, or sandbars are indicated by the presence of white water or breaking waves.  It's easier to locate a slough at low tide, when the sand bars are easily visible, and then return to fish those same sections of the beach when the water is deeper at high tide.  In the case of a gently sloping beach with no outer bar, the waves crest and spill over, and continue to do so until they gradually break on the beach.

The visible beach sand can also offer a tip‑off about the contour of the ocean bottom.  Fine, tightly packed sand is usually found on a beach with a gradual slope.  Very coarse sand, or small gravel, is typically found on a steeply sloping beach.  The coarse, large-grained sand can be darker than the fine-grained sand, and it's not unusual to find various types of sand along several miles of beach.  It is important to be able to recognize the difference between the two types of beaches.

The width of a slough may also be a factor in what species of fish it might harbor.  On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, big fish such as red drum, striped bass, and jumbo bluefish tend to prefer the wider, deeper sloughs, while speckled trout, flounder, pompano and sea mullet can be caught in narrow sloughs where the bar may be as close as twenty yards off the beach, but the water between the beach and the bar is several feet deep.

Once you locate a promising slough, it's time to take the investigation one step further.  Fish may travel this ocean "highway" to look for food, but they need a way to get on the highway. They can cross the bar, or swim through a break in the outer bar.  Breaks in the sand bars are not difficult to find.  Watch the waves for several minutes.  If there is a break in the bar, a wave will pass over the bar, and a section of it will not crest or break.  Watch this area for a while, and if it repeats, you have found a cut in the bar.   When the tide is falling there may also be an indication of fast moving, rippling, or discolored water.

Not only will foraging fish come into the sloughs through these breaks, on a falling tide the fast moving water around these breaks will often form rip currents that send food swirling past the predator fish waiting on the ocean side of the breaks, sometimes called "outsucks".  The hungry fish will line up in front of the baitfish buffet.

Sloughs are not the only beach formations that attract fish. Currents and winds often

scallop out the beach and form points.  Frequently, the water is deep on one side of a point, a perfect location for fish to congregate.  A well defined point on an open beach may form a deep-water pocket and attract fish the same way a piece of structure will hold fish on an otherwise featureless ocean floor.  The key is to concentrate your efforts in a location that is just a bit different from the rest of the topography.

Hard structures such as jetties, piers, bridges, or inlets are also locations that will cause fish to stop and congregate.  Barring catastrophe, these don't change, but the beaches around them will change regularly.  Inlets can be incredibly productive locations to fish the surf.  On a falling tide, the small baitfish, and other sources of food are swept out of the inlet, and provide a natural chum line that will attract fish from miles away.

"The only thing that is constant is change," is important to remember when prospecting for a section of beach that might hold or attract fish.  Beach formations are constantly appearing, moving, rearranging or disappearing, as the winds, currents, and waves change.  A perfect speckled trout hole can appear then vanish in a few days, or even migrate up and down the beach during the course of several weeks.  Keep that in mind as you scan the surf line, looking for that ideal slough or perfect point.

To learn surf fishing from expert instructors and acquire the knowledge, skills and confidence that might take years to acquire, consider attending one the of the sessions of the Outer Banks Surf Fishing School.  The schools are offered during the fall peak of the surf fishing season. For more information visit www.joemalat.com or call 252-202-4189.