Red Drum!

Ahoy Tinboaters,

Anybody know about drum running this month? I'm in eastern NC and this summer has actually been good for drum fishing. Over where I am at (camp lejeune) the red drum have been biting good. They should be hitting more this month and next since it'll be peak season for them. I tell you what......if you are fishing saltwater in eastern NC you can definitely catch big drum. I used live finger mullet and hook them through the tail. My rig is one of two. My first one is a snap swivel with the weight attached and a pre-tied loop hook so the bait can swim around. My second rig is with the weight at the end of the line and the hook attached about 1ft above the weight. I think they call it a Carolina Rig. Just make sure you fish the flats because thats where you'll find them. Anyway, if anybody has some news about whats biting in the saltwater out here in NC please let me know. I'm looking for black drum and blues and big flounder too.

Do not be afraid to toss lures at tailing drum - or use a shrimp rig (or fly)

Well, I'm not in NC, but I have fished a lot of water on the NC/SC coast, from Cape Hatteras to the South Santee River.

I fish a lot for red drum, using a fly rod rigged with a #6 light circle hook, rigged with a live shrimp (you have to finesse your casts when using live bait, or you will sling it off) Basically casting it toward an oyster bed on an incoming tide, casting up-current and letting it drift until I get a hit.

If you want black drum, you'll need to go to some structure, like jetties, or a rock pile, or a deep channel near an oyster reef. Use fiddler crabs, or cut clams for bait...fiddlers are probably better, as you won't be harassed to death by the pinfish (God I hate those things!) You can probably also catch some sheepshead, and maybe even a tautog, around this same structure. Typically, you should start seeing black drum and sheepshead showing up within the next few weeks, as the water starts to cool down.

When I fish for sheepshead or black drum, again, I tend to use a fly rod. But sometimes, I will also use a 20 foot bream buster. Both this, and the fly rod, are incredibly sensitive, you feel every little bump and bite....if you're using this kind of tackle, you have no excuse to not catch sheepshead, despite their notoriety for being bait-stealers.

If you want blues, troll with a #24M mirro-lure at a moderate speed, or use 1/4 oz jig heads with bright colored grubs. You can also catch them while trolling for flounder with live finger mullet, but more often than not, you'll get a lot of cut-offs (for those who don't know, the bluefish has a tendency to cut a minnow in half, leaving the head, or the front end attached to your hook, while making a meal out of the rear end, and not being hooked)

For flounder right now, try to locate deep holes that hold 15+ feet of water at low tide, and fish these areas, trolling across the drop-off, letting the rig drop into the hole, and trolling across the area, until you hit the transition back to shallow water on the other side. It's been my experience that flounder will tend to bank up on one side or the other of a deep hole. You may also have some luck fishing for them around oyster reefs on incoming tides.

Generally speaking, when it comes to fishing in the marsh, once the water starts moving into the grass, you can forget trying to catch fish.

There ARE some exceptions, though. One being on flood tides, where red drum move up onto higher banks that are usually not flooded, they will be looking for fiddler crabs up on these flats.

Also, from October to December, we know this as 'trout season' Just as the water starts to move onto the grass banks, until about 1/2 hour before high tide, is the time to fish for trout.

If you can find a good spot in the marsh, such as a point, a rip, or an oyster rock that's a couple of feet underwater, pull up in the grass, and start casting up-current, out into the deeper water. Use a 1/4 oz orange or pink jig head rigged with a green grub with a firetail, or, take a DOA shrimp, remove the factory hook and weight, and rig this onto the jig head. Reel it just fast enough to keep it off the bottom, but slow enough that you do feel it hit bottom once in a while. As it sweeps along with the current, if you're in a good location, a trout will pick it up.

Here's a pretty nice one from last month's trip...

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Heading to Topsail Island to try a little redfish/flounder fishing out of my tin with my daughter. Anybody have suggestions as to good locations to try? We will be staying at Surf City, near the swing bridge. I only have a 15 hp Johnny, so can't travel too far from the ramps. (I can go to any of the ramps though! :mrgreen: )