Red drum populations continue to increase as a result of restrictive recreational and commercial landings. Big cut baits fished on the bottom are the ticket to catching huge red drum when they are inshore. At night, the old drum migrate along the navigation channels, sandbars and the dropoffs at the edges of the sandbars. Anglers spot the fish by watching for oil slicks surfacing from crushed menhaden when the big fish are feeding. In the sound and river, the fishing is different. Anglers casting live baits, cut baits, spoons and big soft-plastic lures on jigheads may hook and land a dozen in a half day of fishing. Massive schools of huge red drum are easy to spot as they chase baitfish along the bars. Runs of old drum occur at Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Bald Head Island, Ocracoke and all of the nearby inlets. Just before and after they arrive inland, they make an appearance at the inlets and beaches. They stay around until August or September. One place that has become legendary is the lower Neuse River/Pamlico Sound area, where adult fish migrate to spawn each year beginning in July. Conversely, some highly migratory fish like striped bass, summer flounder and weakfish, may be so abundant in some places that their numbers appear utterly inexhaustible even as fishery managers may say they are in short supply in the overall scheme of things.īut anglers who want to catch and release these huge redfish, which can easily top 50 pounds, head for a few specific places. Fish that are abundant on a coastwide basis may be absent from a localized area where they may have been found in the recent past. But even statistics have their weaknesses. Long-term statistics are one of the best ways to predict which species an angler has the best success of finding and catching when he tries his luck in the brine. While fishery management plans can and have smoothed many of the peaks and valleys in the indices of many of North Carolina's favorite saltwater fish, there is little that can be done when environmental factors exert an even larger influence on populations of a specific species than can be offset by tweaking such angler-induced mortality factors as commercial quotas and by catch and recreational angler retention and catch-and-release mortality figures that can run as high as 15 percent. ![]() Saltwater game fish populations are subject to more ups and downs than an amusement park roller coaster ride.
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