August 7 2007, Long Beach Surf, North Carolina
The annual certainty at this beach happens right now: a giant mystery fish grabs my bait and takes off and I hang on with scant hope. My rig is a freshwater spinning outfit with a hundred yards of 30-pound Power Pro on top of 100 yards of 10-pound mono.
Following a multi-day scattering of one-pound whiting, a monster has now inhaled my wire-leadered live shrimp and is swimming towards Europe. As I say, this happens every year. Sometimes twice. And sometimes I win – usually a 3- or 4-foot shark, sometimes a giant flounder, but more often a stingray.
I have fished this stretch of surf for 15 weeks now – every first Saturday-to-Saturday week of August for 15 years. And you can’t predict the fishing.
One year it was bluefish – small ones – splattering surface schools of mullet minnows and hitting rapidly retrieved strips of cut bait. Another year it was pompano – tiny pompano everywhere, flat-siding the skinny incoming water up the beach and then out, gorging on sand fleas, and occasionally offering a two-pounder to a carefully fished rod. Last year it was sharks – from 14 inches to 4 feet – hitting live shrimp mostly, forcing the use of wire leaders, braided line, and long-nose pliers.
There is the occasional flounder, the infrequent Spanish mackerel, and a rare trout. Years ago there were spots here during this week, but last year I caught just one.
The whiting are the mainstays – numbers of cigar-size fingerlings in close, and larger ones – a good one weighs a pound or more – out further.
But no matter how you look at it, the fishing isn’t great here – never has been. A local guide told me that this 8-mile stretch may be the most barren beach on the Atlantic coast. He’s plotted the bottom with his electronics and says it’s a featureless desert out there. So you feel good when you do catch something.
Today is Tuesday, and this morning during two hours of wading chest-deep and casting live shrimp, I got one bite: a 16-inch whiting. Now it’s afternoon and I have been doing the same and am now attached to what I presume is a shark. Last year I caught more than 20 sharks here – mostly a pound or two, but a half-dozen were three feet or longer. Stingrays will stop their runs and hug the sand, but this current fish isn’t stopping. A few miles down the beach on Yaupon Pier they caught a 1,100-pound tiger shark last year. The pier regulars see lots of big sharks; I never have.
The braid screams off the reel in spite of a tight drag, and now it’s gone and into the monofilament. It won’t be long now. I just wish the fish would jump – leap clear and shake its head.
Usually we see dolphins here – porpoises – but not even one this year. There are always pelicans – lines of a dozen or more low-fliers cruising the beach and the ocean – but not this year.
The big fish hasn’t stopped, and the spool of my reel is emptying. Going, going, going, gone – and the final knot pops. I’ve been spooled. How long will a big fish swim around trailing a 200-yard length of fishing line?
Back at the house as I re-spool I am unaware that6 another mystery fish will bite before the day is over – and that I will capture it, and that it will be a surprise.
They say that this is the only undiscovered beach left in the United States. Our rental cottage on the beach is inexpensive, and when we walk out on the deck and look with binoculars two miles in both directions we count no more than 100 persons – including maybe 6 anglers. There are zero jet skis, zero surfers, and only a sprinkling of kayakers. All this will of course change during the next few years.
And there is no undertow, no riptide – at least not compared to the Outer Banks. This beach runs east to west, and its slope is gentle; at low tide you can sometimes be chest-deep a hundred yards out.
It’s afternoon now, and I’m re-rigged and re-shrimped and chest-deep among windy waves. I catch the shrimp myself with a cast net – throwing it into the tidal creek a few miles down the island. My other favorite bait is mullet minnows, and I catch them right here in the surf with the cast net. Get out here chest-deep with a live-lined (no weight) mullet minnow and you’re liable to catch a bluefish or a trout or a shark or even a Spanish.
My Carolina-rigged live shrimp explores the bottom out as far as I can cast. My strategy is to move it a few feet and then let it sit a few seconds. Flounder like something on the move; whiting bite when it’s stationary. Sharks don’t care.
This hard wind forces a continual procession of huge waves and swells that cause me to pogo myself several feet off the bottom to keep my head above water. No other anglers are out here enduring this.
Suddenly a fish is on – no bite, just a stretched line and a steady pull. It’s much bigger and stronger than a whiting. I do what I always do with bigger fish: head for the beach.
Drag peels off the reel (30-pound braid again) and my rod throbs. So this fish may just be catchable. (There’s no throb when a truly giant fish takes my bait, just a continual double bend.)
The drag stops and I make progress as the fish turns and parallels the beach. I follow it. Last year I followed – and eventually landed – a 44-inch shark up the beach through several pods of swimmers. But this fish now doesn’t go far. Six nearby swimmers stop and stand and watch.
I make more progress and the fish nears the breakers. Another lunge of the drag. Then another. Then the fish rockets to the surface and leaps three feet out. A pompano! A big pompano! Not like the African giants, but bigger than I have personally ever caught here on this beach.
He leaps three more times – full body clear of the ocean – as the swimmers watch and as I hold on. Finally I beach him on an incoming wave.
Three pounds at least! Maybe four. Glimmering pearl hue with yellow highlights. My hook protrudes from the corner of his jaw. Slick-soft skin over gourmet muscle. A real prize here at Long Beach.
I kneel in the sand, hold the fish flat, remove the hook, and then scoop him upward and oceanward into an Olympic dive to freedom.
In a minute I’m back out here chest-deep with another live shrimp. But after an hour of increasing winds and no more bites and sinking sun I call it a day.
Long Beach has one thing in common with most other ocean fishing holes: you can count on an eventual surprise at the end of your line.
The annual certainty at this beach happens right now: a giant mystery fish grabs my bait and takes off and I hang on with scant hope. My rig is a freshwater spinning outfit with a hundred yards of 30-pound Power Pro on top of 100 yards of 10-pound mono.
Following a multi-day scattering of one-pound whiting, a monster has now inhaled my wire-leadered live shrimp and is swimming towards Europe. As I say, this happens every year. Sometimes twice. And sometimes I win – usually a 3- or 4-foot shark, sometimes a giant flounder, but more often a stingray.
I have fished this stretch of surf for 15 weeks now – every first Saturday-to-Saturday week of August for 15 years. And you can’t predict the fishing.
One year it was bluefish – small ones – splattering surface schools of mullet minnows and hitting rapidly retrieved strips of cut bait. Another year it was pompano – tiny pompano everywhere, flat-siding the skinny incoming water up the beach and then out, gorging on sand fleas, and occasionally offering a two-pounder to a carefully fished rod. Last year it was sharks – from 14 inches to 4 feet – hitting live shrimp mostly, forcing the use of wire leaders, braided line, and long-nose pliers.
There is the occasional flounder, the infrequent Spanish mackerel, and a rare trout. Years ago there were spots here during this week, but last year I caught just one.
The whiting are the mainstays – numbers of cigar-size fingerlings in close, and larger ones – a good one weighs a pound or more – out further.
But no matter how you look at it, the fishing isn’t great here – never has been. A local guide told me that this 8-mile stretch may be the most barren beach on the Atlantic coast. He’s plotted the bottom with his electronics and says it’s a featureless desert out there. So you feel good when you do catch something.
Today is Tuesday, and this morning during two hours of wading chest-deep and casting live shrimp, I got one bite: a 16-inch whiting. Now it’s afternoon and I have been doing the same and am now attached to what I presume is a shark. Last year I caught more than 20 sharks here – mostly a pound or two, but a half-dozen were three feet or longer. Stingrays will stop their runs and hug the sand, but this current fish isn’t stopping. A few miles down the beach on Yaupon Pier they caught a 1,100-pound tiger shark last year. The pier regulars see lots of big sharks; I never have.
The braid screams off the reel in spite of a tight drag, and now it’s gone and into the monofilament. It won’t be long now. I just wish the fish would jump – leap clear and shake its head.
Usually we see dolphins here – porpoises – but not even one this year. There are always pelicans – lines of a dozen or more low-fliers cruising the beach and the ocean – but not this year.
The big fish hasn’t stopped, and the spool of my reel is emptying. Going, going, going, gone – and the final knot pops. I’ve been spooled. How long will a big fish swim around trailing a 200-yard length of fishing line?
Back at the house as I re-spool I am unaware that6 another mystery fish will bite before the day is over – and that I will capture it, and that it will be a surprise.
They say that this is the only undiscovered beach left in the United States. Our rental cottage on the beach is inexpensive, and when we walk out on the deck and look with binoculars two miles in both directions we count no more than 100 persons – including maybe 6 anglers. There are zero jet skis, zero surfers, and only a sprinkling of kayakers. All this will of course change during the next few years.
And there is no undertow, no riptide – at least not compared to the Outer Banks. This beach runs east to west, and its slope is gentle; at low tide you can sometimes be chest-deep a hundred yards out.
It’s afternoon now, and I’m re-rigged and re-shrimped and chest-deep among windy waves. I catch the shrimp myself with a cast net – throwing it into the tidal creek a few miles down the island. My other favorite bait is mullet minnows, and I catch them right here in the surf with the cast net. Get out here chest-deep with a live-lined (no weight) mullet minnow and you’re liable to catch a bluefish or a trout or a shark or even a Spanish.My Carolina-rigged live shrimp explores the bottom out as far as I can cast. My strategy is to move it a few feet and then let it sit a few seconds. Flounder like something on the move; whiting bite when it’s stationary. Sharks don’t care.
This hard wind forces a continual procession of huge waves and swells that cause me to pogo myself several feet off the bottom to keep my head above water. No other anglers are out here enduring this.
Suddenly a fish is on – no bite, just a stretched line and a steady pull. It’s much bigger and stronger than a whiting. I do what I always do with bigger fish: head for the beach.
Drag peels off the reel (30-pound braid again) and my rod throbs. So this fish may just be catchable. (There’s no throb when a truly giant fish takes my bait, just a continual double bend.)
The drag stops and I make progress as the fish turns and parallels the beach. I follow it. Last year I followed – and eventually landed – a 44-inch shark up the beach through several pods of swimmers. But this fish now doesn’t go far. Six nearby swimmers stop and stand and watch.
I make more progress and the fish nears the breakers. Another lunge of the drag. Then another. Then the fish rockets to the surface and leaps three feet out. A pompano! A big pompano! Not like the African giants, but bigger than I have personally ever caught here on this beach.
He leaps three more times – full body clear of the ocean – as the swimmers watch and as I hold on. Finally I beach him on an incoming wave.
Three pounds at least! Maybe four. Glimmering pearl hue with yellow highlights. My hook protrudes from the corner of his jaw. Slick-soft skin over gourmet muscle. A real prize here at Long Beach.
I kneel in the sand, hold the fish flat, remove the hook, and then scoop him upward and oceanward into an Olympic dive to freedom.
In a minute I’m back out here chest-deep with another live shrimp. But after an hour of increasing winds and no more bites and sinking sun I call it a day.
Long Beach has one thing in common with most other ocean fishing holes: you can count on an eventual surprise at the end of your line.
Photo: John Bryan (me) catching bait in Long Beach (NC) surf.
