Stripers and Dogfish

cape fear hybrid

Greetings from the Cape Fear Coast

Wednesday April 23, 2008 was spent fishing in the Cape Fear River around Downtown Wilmington, N.C.. I had heard reports of Speckled Trout in the area and decided to give casting some structure a try. I was armed with two new lures and wanted test them out for hitting deep structure and surface fishing. There was a strong NE wind blowing on the hill and threats of rain offshore but not inland and as usual never listen to the weatherman. I was dodging rain showers almost immediatly of getting on the water.
After casting for about an hour or so and hitting every piece of structure I could see I managed a couple of fierce strikes but could no get the hooks in. So I tied on one of my new lures and started over fishing a deep diver. I felt a bump along the bottom after a long retrive and decided to fish this bottom area a little more throughly. Five more casts and I had three soild strikes and on the sixth cast a fish hit that did not feel like a trout. As I lowered the rod tip to the water to break it's will, the hooks pulled and I never saw the fish. Three more casts and I landed a soild 24" hybrid.
I ended up fishing for about another two hours and had several more missed fish and landed another 20" hybrid on a shallow diver up in some structure but no speckled trout. I"ll take two nice hybrids any day. The new lures did there jobs nicely.

Thurday April 24, 2008 the forecast was calling for the ocean to lay down and a chance for Bonito again. I got the boy off to daycare and waited for my neighbor to decide if 3-5' seas and the end of a smallcraft advisory at 09:00 was okay for him to fish. He decided not to go and I was off by 08:30. This was later than I wanted to go but you go when you can. The inlet was rolling and the ride out to the Liberty Ship was a bit wet but totally do able. I made multiple drifts and only managed three blues. No signs of life at all in the water or the air. After about 09:45 the wind began to lay out and so did the swell but fishing did not improve. Time to make a move and I ran to Masons Inlet in search of life. There were random birds flying but none diving on any bait and I found no bait on the scope. I drifted and trolled around the inlet for a while and decided to make another move.
I hit Masonboro jetty and caught some blues. I cut up some bait and started bottom fishing the jetty where the Dogfish still rule the roost. I decided to call it a day and headed for the hill.

masonboro jetty dogfish

Rip'em up and let some go
Capt. Danny Wrenn
96 Charter Company
Wilmington, N.C.
910.619.2224