Thanksgiving Specks in the OBX

Speckhunter

Button Buck
Spent the Holiday week at the Outer Banks, appears that yes there seems to be more trout in the surf than the last trips to Buxton area - or maybe it was the fact the weather and waves and water clarity converged and gave me a little extra to be thankful for this time around.

Lots of undersized specks reported on grubs and bait last week from Kittyhawk to the Point.

I upsized the lure....pulled an old green back Mirrolure out of the bag and got this one - on my last cast of the first morning while walking back to the house. 21 inches and 3.5 lb.

The next morning I went back and was standing next to a guy that put three on a stringer, all this size - and larger.

If these smaller throw backs return, the speck fishing future looks promising.
 

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Justin

Old Mossy Horns
It does look promising. I wasn’t around for the good old days but from what I’ve seen this fall, the small ones are thick as anything I’ve seen. Thanks for the photo and report.
 

Speckhunter

Button Buck
I may not have been around in the good old days, - but I was at the Lighthouse veterans day weekend on a Sunday afternoon in 1987 when my brothers and I got into them so thick we all limited out on specks (10 each) along with grey trout, puppy drum and blues, all from the same hole...seems the albies had corralled a school of bait fish and depending on how you threw and let the lure drop...you could hit a feeding layer of any one of those species.
They were hitting Mirrolures and plastic grubs....what fun.

Everyone else except for two couples that happened to be there in the melee was on the point in the conga line going for drum.

By sundown I was throwing back gray trout that were still biting, and contemplating a late night at the cleaning table and guessing where we could get some more styrofoam coolers at that hour.
...and the drive home NoVA/DC to make it into work the next morning.
My parents got some of the catch on a stop over on the long drive home, and the folks at work the next morning all benefited from the fish I brought to work in those coolers.
I ate the catch that I kept the next three nights - I won't freeze fish if I can avoid it.

Haven't quite seen anything like that day since, except some blues blitzes several times.
 

nchawkeye

Old Mossy Horns
I can remember in the '70s when the blues ran trout on the beach and you could pick up as many as you could carry...
 

Speckhunter

Button Buck
Blues running trout on the beach...yes indeed, I've heard of that...I've only seen mullet and spot run on the beach, but the trout...yep.
There is a famous photo I'm going to have to dig up and scan....and post.
 

Speckhunter

Button Buck
The "good old days".
Dug up these old pictures from that trout/puppy drum story in 1987, the pictures are a bit faded, but not the memory. : )

I'd like to see something done about the bunker harvesting by Omega...the situation from Maine to Jersey to Maryland and to OBX is a bit sad. I understand beach replenishment up north after Sandy may have also had something to do with it.
 

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