The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

A look back . . .  Speckled trout.  What a great fish.  To fish for, to catch, and, every once in a while, to invite a few to dinner . . . When the trout get thick and start chewing, it's that time of year.  The temperature cools and the water clears.  It's the best time time of year---fall on the coast of Carolina. Catch 'em from the skiff, catch 'em from the jetty.   It just doesn't get much better . . . especially when these "trout-tivities" coincide with spoil island skeet shooting and some Turkey day oysters and a bit of Atlantic Beach pie.  

Thanks to graduate school applications, LSAT studying, other so-called "real world" commitments, and an interruption from Hurricane Matthew,  the fall hasn't yielded quite as much time in the woods or on the water as I would've liked.  But I have fit in a few trips.  Don't you worry.   ...

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...