Here is my fishing report for October 4, 2009 on Hatteras and Ocracoke.
It was mostly sunny with a high of 74 degrees. The water temperature on the ocean side was at 75 degrees. The water temperature on the sound side was 73 degrees. SW winds blowing for more than 12 hours the day before shifted to NW winds at 8 - 10 mph by Sunday morning. High tide was at 8:09 PM at Hatteras Inlet, not sure about Ocracoke. We arrived at Hatteras Inlet and fished the sound side first. There was a lot of grass in the water, and it was hard to tell when there was a bite. Sam caught a small lizard fish before we moved over to the ocean side. After fishing for about 1 hour on the ocean side without a bite, we went to check into our motel before heading down to Ocracoke for the evening high tide.
We stayed at the Hatteras Marlin Motel. Nothing fancy about this place, and we did not care because we were fishing, but it had nice rooms that were recently remodeled. However, I do want to note that even though they had Wi-Fi, and I could view websites and such, I was unable to download my email, nor login into a server via RDC. Annoying! Since we were only staying for one night, this was not a big deal, but certainly would be an issue if my stay was longer.
After checking in, I walked down to the shallow boat-slip bordering the property and saw several schools of Menhaden. Using the cast net I caught about 50 or so in 3 casts. We packed them on ice and headed to Ocracoke.
We got to Ocracoke around 5 PM and headed down to the southern point. We fished on the sound side of the point about 200 yards from the barrier. I was using a traditional drum rig, which includes a slip sinker with 6 ounce weight (depends on the current), a 24 inch steel leader tied directly to a #6 hook.
I cast out the first line and started baiting a second and immediately got a bite. I reeled in a small blue fish. I tried to fish 4 rods, but simply could not keep up with the bites. You could tell it was mainly small blues were hitting because I would reel in a head or no bait because they were hitting from the back. Since I was looking for Reds, I kept on baiting them up and casting them out. We caught another small blue, but I should have tried adding a trailing hook to also catch blues instead of using up so much bait.
After a short lull after switching 2 rods over to mullet, we began catching flounder on the Menhaden baited rods. Only one flounder was a keeper, at exactly 15 inches. I watched a couple of guys down from us tearing up flounder on light weight rods and fluorescent orange and chrome spoons. They were simply casting into the edge of the breaker and catching them every other casts. All of them were too small though. Looked like fun on light tackle.
I had heard reports on some big Red Drum being caught on Friday and Saturday and was anxious for a bite, when finally I heard the sound of the drag zinging. I grabbed the pole and reeled in a nice 27 inch puppy drum after a quick fight. I still have not landed a monster bull red on obx, and only one at 54 inches in Florida, but it sure was nice to bring home some fresh meat of this puppy drum. Sam and I ate it for dinner last night and it was delicious.
We were still getting some bites after dark, but it was getting cool and my son was tired, so we packed up and headed back to the motel. It was great to get in on some of the fall fishing action on Ocracoke and look forward to returning in a couple of weeks. I will be hoping for some tight lines again!