December Fishing Review

While we strive to be one of the most up to date fishing reports in the area, we are going to start writing a big report at the end of each month to keep you up to date with what happened during the month, and what you can expect to happen in the next month, so here it goes.

November was one of the best months this year for Speckled Trout and as expected it carried over into December. At the beginning of the month we continued catching the bigger trout in the 3 pound and over class. Captain Tripp did achieve his goal of getting a Speckled Trout citation in December, while the rest of us watched on catching respectable 3 plus pound trout. We continued to use live shrimp even though many places near us were running out. Fortunately for us, we made a trip to Charleston in the middle of the month and luckily a shop down there had some live shrimp that were willing to ride back to Ocean Isle with us. As we ran out of shrimp and the temperature dropped, we began running saltwater artificial baits. Just about any color combination will work as long as you tie a lot of fluorcarbon on, you should be good to go with the Trout. As the month drug on, we began to see the high concentration of Black Drum move in, just like they normally do when the temperature drops a little. The best way to get on them is dead shrimp on a Carolina rig. The picture below was taken December 1st. Pictured: Captain TrippWe finally got a nice weather window in December to make a Gulf stream run. We had good reports that some of our friends were catching Wahoos in the 80-90 pound range at the end of November, so we knew there was a good chance to get on some good fish. We were happy to confirm reports of good Wahoo catching one in the high 20s and one in the low 60s. While we were out we heard reports of 69 and 59 inch Wahoo being caught. We lucked out with only about two hours of trolling under our belt. After that, we moved around to hit bottom numbers hoping for some grouper, but were content with a mixed bag of triggers, b-liners, grunts, and porgies. The picture below was taken December 17th. Left to Right: Capt. John, Cole Clemmons, Capt. Tripp Hooks

Tomorrow we will begin to wrap up the fishing for December in a backwater tournament hoping for two big trout or two big red fish. The air temperature may be dropping, but the bite is still on. Call 910-540-7332 to get your fishing adventure started for 2018!