Fishing

It is amazing how the weather can change so much, so fast. A strong cold front pushed through our area on Friday night and within hours temperatures dropped to the 60s and fall was here in full force. Since then, lows at night have fallen into the 40s, and as a result, water temperatures have dropped 3-5 degrees. As a result, the bite is on.

It’s officially fall and spot are biting at our local Brunswick County piers. Reports have been coming in for the last two weeks of “yellow-bellied” spot runs up and down the coast.
Spot are the most popular saltwater panfish in the Carolinas and hordes of them show up on Brunswick County piers each autumn around this time. Already reports are much better than the last two years, when spot fishing was slow.

Those are the time-appropriate words spoken by my Grandpa Mac. He grew up in the Mississippi woods, and I’m quite sure there was some form of sanctioned catfish racing.  And you may well imagine, you had better be ready when standing in the starting blocks of a catfish race.

Sometimes you have to make things worse before they can get better. I believe such is going to be the case with our local fishing.
This summer has been fair fishing, but nothing spectacular. After the wind of July, August was actually a good weather month, but most of the offshore fisheries were lacking. The water temperatures had risen into the mid- 80s, and despite clear waters with lots of baitfish, the predators just weren’t present.