The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

Got some words printed in the recent March/April 2025 issue of Tail Fly Fishing Magazine , "the voice of saltwater fly fishing."  Go pick up a copy online or in print at your local fly shop, if it's "salty" enough.  

Around Wrightsville Beach and Figure Eight Island, they always said you couldn't catch fish off the docks on artificial bait.  Those fish just see so much thrown at them, they said.  It was live or cut bait only, preferably live.   I've found that not to be the case.  Especially for big flounder and the occasional drum or trout.  And if you enjoy the active experience of trying to manipulate a bait with a rod and reel to try and trick a fish, fishing artificial bait is the way to go.  If there's a flounder season this year in North Carolina, give it a shot.   At least for the fish by the docks around the Wrightsville/Figure Eight areas, here's my playbook.  White soft-plastic baits , preferably scented, on a jig head that's going to sink quickly enough and stay at the bottom, depending on where you're fishing.  Cast close to the dock, bump the bait off the bottom, retrieve slowly.   The flat fish seem to like white baits,...

My blog has been dormant like an alligator in the winter mud.  I'm trying to awaken it from its slumber.    In an attempt to rouse this online place where I occasionally jot some things down, I'm looking back a ways, back to March of '22.  A darn fine weekend.  Or a collection of a few weekends.  Regardless, darn fine.  Oysters and drum and cool, clean, and clear salt water, and azaleas in bloom.     Picking oysters---knocking the too-small ones off the clusters, toss the ones you keep in the fish basket sitting in the still cold, early spring, southeastern Carolina water, still cold and clean, maybe even shuck one of the bivalves for a briny mid morning snack, or maybe it was mid afternoon.  Find a few mussels too, just poking through a mud bank of a small creek, pull them, often connected together in a big clump, out of that dark rich mud that smells like marsh.   A few drum---casting up on the oyster bank, let the jig a...

Rails.  Marsh hens.  Rail birds.  Marsh chickens. Whatever you wanna call 'em. I'm by no means an experienced marsh hen hunter . . . I've only tried for the salt marsh fowl a handful of times. There can be some work required for this briny mix of dove and quail hunting.  Especially trying to push the skiff through the spartina grass when the tide hasn't risen quite enough . . .  especially with a not-quite-long-enough push pole.  You, like me, may be huffing and puffing. But when you spy a rail-bird through the grass, when you see that long distinctive bill, when you see that dark brown, slinking through the flooded grass, low, low like a nutria or a rat, those hunting instincts that lay dormant in many of us start to stir. This really is hunting , though the shooting isn't all that difficult.  Your eyes straining, looking for the small bird, the bird just trying to evade your detection.  He, the bird, won't jump up and flush easily....

The Toyota truck's odometer gained more than 1,000 miles in the days before and after Christmas. Rolling down both country roads and interstates alike.  Wilson to Creswell.  Creswell to Knotts Island.  Knotts Island back to Wilson.  Wilson to Wilmington.  Wilmington to Laurinburg.  Laurinburg to Charlotte.  And finally, coming full circle, back to Wilson on the day after Christmas. But almost as soon as we were back, we were gone again.  Now it was off to Belize.  We'd never really done a big family trip like this, and thankfully, there'd be some fishing involved.  With my brother, my mom, two of my cousins, and their mom, we'd be flying to Belize City, and then hopping on a Cessna Grand Caravan and flying half an hour out to San Pedro on Amber Gris Caye.

Things start where they often do.  The truck.   Throw the kayak in there, since the skiff's in the shop, and stick the 8 weight through the sliding back window.  Grab your flies and a water bottle.  Paddle and a life jacket too.  Good to go.

Since mid May, I'd been living up in Washington, in the big city, with all its people, buildings, monuments, ever-confusing traffic circles, its Metro system, and not nearly as much fishing as I'd have liked. I was wishing I was fishing.

Sambo's a good pup.  He's a pup, even if he is about 10 years old.

Friday was more than breezy.  Saturday was more of the same.  Throw some rain in there and time spent with the family - walking and biking and eating and drinking and eating some more.  Not much of a window for hard fishing, and the time that was there proved fruitless for a fly-only (most of the time) kind of guy like me.  Haven't broken out the old Penn rod and reel for a while.  Sunday was Easter.  Church then lunch.  Didn't hit the water till 3 or 4.  It was less than mid tide, and I decided to not run too far, checking out what my brother and I've called Mullet Creek since we were little.  A ways down there's a deep hole, with a bit of an undercut bank that reminds me of a trout stream where a big brown could be hiding, waiting to pounce on a sculpin.  Can't see the bottom even with the clear cold water of early April.  I hoped for a tug.  Out there in God's real church.  A big black drum or speck.  Nothing...