Wilmington, NC - Fishing for trout and redfish

December 4,5, 2014   Wilmington, N.C.

W.C. Lanier, a SEOPA member and owner of the Cape Fear Wildlife Expo invited me to a couple days of fishing for speckled trout, redfish and stripers in the Wilmington area.

My uncle, Joe Baker, and I arrived on Wednesday night and were treated to a great dinner at the Crab Shack.

Thursday morning we met at the Scotts Hill Marina, next to W.C.'s house. The marina was modern and very well kept.

Our guide for the day was Capt. Wayne Crisco from Topsail Beach. We headed out to the marsh and stopped between two marsh islands. Crisco had rigged the Penn spinning rods with Berkley Gulp shrimp on jig heads.

We each cast in different directions; bumping the bait on the bottom and immediately had strikes on all 3 rods. The fishing was fast and furious.  We landed a trout on almost every cast but, unfortunately,  they were all too short to keep.

After an hour, Crisco told us that we just had a warm-up and now we were going to his favorite honey-hole. We took off and after a mile or two we slowed and entered the Harbor Village Marina, Hampstead, N.C.

We switched to live shrimp on #6 treble hooks under a big cork. Crisco showed us how and where to cast the baits. We were trying to get the baits as close as possible to an old retaining wall at the end of the marina.

We caught lots of trout, redfish and several black drum. We kept 7 trout, 1 redfish and 1 black drum.
I filleted 7 nice fish to take home.

WC and Dexter Johnson were fishing in the next lane and said the screen was full of fish so we moved and lost the bite. Before we could get back to Capt. Crisco's the honey-hole another boat had already moved in.

We moved on to Old Point Creek and continued fishing - but no keepers. It was a beautiful, sunny day and a pair of bald eagles soared over head to make the day even better.

Friday morning we met Capt. Jot Owens at the public landing in downtown Wilmington for some striped bass and redfish. We headed up the Cape Fear River to find striped bass and redfish. We fished for hours throwing swimbaits and even jigging in deep water. The North Cape Fear and the Brunswick rivers all looked great but no strikes. We caught 3 small stripers and no redfish. Capt. Owens worked really hard to find fish but it was a rough day 

 

 

 

Heading out to Capt. Crisco's honey-hole.

 

Scotts Hill Marina

 

Oyster beds in Old Point Creek

 

 

Capt. Wayne Crisco, Last Resort Charter

 

Joe Baker with a nice black drum.

                                                          Lou with a nice big trout.

 

 

 

Joe with a black drum and a trout.