Fishing in Beaufort (Oct. 2017)

thrillhill

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I got a little bored thanks to our current weather.

Looking through some pics on my computer and realized I hadn't posted my fishing trip in October and thought today would be a good day for it.

Anyway, up until October I hadn't been to the coast for going on 7 years. I love surf fishing and often miss it badly. It's hard to get away when you raise a fair amount of critters. The wife and kids have got to go for the past several years, but it's hard for all of us to leave at the same time.

Buddy of mine bought a place in Beaufort on the waterway. It's a Beaufort address anyway. He called it Cedar Island. Neat house. It's got it's own little pier and dock. He's got a "big" boat and a "little" boat. Lowers em down in the water with a remote control while we are on the back porch drinking coffee or whatever. Usually whatever for me. Beautiful place.

I tried to talk my buddy into takin me surf fishing. He said that was nonsense, we were there to fish in boats. I wasn't too sure I would enjoy that, never done much fishing from boats. I figure with surf fishing, if they ain't bitin, I still sit there and enjoy the surf and the little critters.

I'm glad he knew what he was doing. This weekend trip, just me and my buddy, was one of the funnest experiences I've ever had.

The first day, we took the big boat out. Took a left in the waterway and went out into the ocean and fished for kings. I think he said we were fishing "Northwest Places"? We caught two each. He had a third one up to the boat, which would have been his limit, but I knocked it off trying to gaff it. We each lost a couple. Caught a couple of sharks too. Had to run off the dolphins every once in a while. Good times. Good eatin.

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The second morning, we took the little boat out.

We hung a right in the waterway.

We flew along in shallow water for like an hour. Ran through a lot of "ditches".

Fished pretty much all day. Mainly for speckled trout. We limited out on trout and caught a couple of "eating size" flounder.

We were fishing VERY near some kind of practice facility for Marine Corps Cobra gunships. We were one of only two boats in sight. Once the shooting started the other boat left. So we fished by ourselves most of the day.

Had a pretty cool "Merica" moment that day.

I looked over at my buddy, as I was pissing off the back of the boat, beer in the other hand, at 9:30am, with rockets and automatic cannon fire sounding off around us, and said this is pretty cool I reckon. LOL! I got a little excited each time that lead chopper would dip down towards the ground.

Yeah, that was a good day too.

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The second morning, we took the little boat out.

We hung a right in the waterway.

We flew along in shallow water for like an hour. Ran through a lot of "ditches".

Fished pretty much all day. Mainly for speckled trout. We limited out on trout and caught a couple of "eating size" flounder.

We were fishing VERY near some kind of practice facility for Marine Corps Cobra gunships. We were one of only two boats in sight. Once the shooting started the other boat left. So we fished by ourselves most of the day.

Had a pretty cool "Merica" moment that day.

I looked over at my buddy, as I was pissing off the back of the boat, beer in the other hand, at 9:30am, with rockets and automatic cannon fire sounding off around us, and said this is pretty cool I reckon. LOL! I got a little excited each time that lead chopper would dip down towards the ground.

Yeah, that was a good day too.


Those are good looking fish! My cousin has a boat and slip in Beaufort, so I go down once, maybe twice, a year to fish. There are so many creeks and inlets in that area, it's amazing what you can catch without actually going through the surf zone into the Atlantic.

The Marines have an outlying air field, MCOLF (Marine Corps Outlying Landing Field) Atlantic, right by the community of Atlantic.
 
The funny thing is (and some of the fellas on here can certainly attest to my nature in this regard), he damn near had to twist my arm out of socket to get me to go. That of course will NOT be the case next time. LOL! I'd had a couple of hernia repair surgeries back to back over the course of 6 months and this was just the trip I needed to lift my spirits.

I wholeheartedly love my family. But, it sure was nice to slip off by ourselves for the weekend and focus only on fishing.

He goes down about every other weekend so he let me keep about 90% of the fish. I am still enjoying some of it during the winter.

We ate like kings, drank like gods, and fished like men.

I can't wait to go back!
 
The Marines have an outlying air field, MCOLF (Marine Corps Outlying Landing Field) Atlantic, right by the community of Atlantic.

They were pretty much overhead when they fired. We could see them fire and we could see the impact zone. It appeared to be 300-400 yards away from us. We were pretty close.

But they only fired from 2 directions. They never fired where we would be in the "ricochet zone".

My buddy said he had fished even closer once before. The second chopper that followed the gunship actually landed about 40 yards away from his boat on those little grass covered islands. Well, it dropped a guy out and flew off. The guy asked him to relocate a little further down and then the chopper came back and picked him up. Says they were real nice about it. My buddy said when they guy first greeted him my buddy threw his hands up in the air and said "I don't know anything about Hilary". LOL!

But, he says he has a pretty good feel for how close he can get now.

Here's a couple of pics from that encounter. Same boat.

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Nice pictures and fish.

If you drop these coordinates into a google maps page it will show you what and where they shoot on Piney Island. 35.013820, -76.462227

I've been out there a few times and saw the helicopters and amphibious equipment around from Hwy 12 out to West Bay. East of Beaufort is my happy place. I go down to Harkers and stay several times a year.

<>< Fish

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We did good that day around Jack's Bay/Point and worked our way up to Dowdy catching fish while they were shooting.
 
Have a place in SeaLevel, about 12 miles from Cedar Island. The bombing range is BT-11, They used to have a big twin rotor helicopter that checked the range before they would start shooting. I was fishing early one morning, and "Pedro" ( as the helicopter was called) came over us, circled and flew off, that was our hint to move away, we didn't move quick enough, he came back and hovered about 50 yards away, cocked it up on the side and the prop wash wet us good. Great place to fish though.
 
Have a place in SeaLevel, about 12 miles from Cedar Island. The bombing range is BT-11, They used to have a big twin rotor helicopter that checked the range before they would start shooting. I was fishing early one morning, and "Pedro" ( as the helicopter was called) came over us, circled and flew off, that was our hint to move away, we didn't move quick enough, he came back and hovered about 50 yards away, cocked it up on the side and the prop wash wet us good. Great place to fish though.

Unfortunately Pedro was shut down a little over 2 years ago. http://www.witn.com/home/headlines/...nts-Pedro-to-be-Friday-evening-329498831.html

<>< Fish
 
Yes I miss them very much, they also helped with local search and rescue missions, Now help has to come from some base on the coast of Virginia I think.
 
Yes I miss them very much, they also helped with local search and rescue missions, Now help has to come from some base on the coast of Virginia I think.

Hey at least we have a Dollar General out at 12 & 70 now. It has come in handy since the Red & White closed! :)

<>< Fish
 
Yes I miss them very much, they also helped with local search and rescue missions, Now help has to come from some base on the coast of Virginia I think.

I think all of eastern NC hated when Pedro was shut down... Even my dog since the track from Newbern hospital to Pitt Hospital (usually this was critical newborn/infant transport) was right over the house. The CH-46s rotors would vibrate the house and the dog would run out and bark up at it. I've seen them pick up people from the surf and during Floyd, from house rooftops. Pedro saved a lot of lives. The USMC retired the CH-46 in 2015 and thus Perdo was ended. There were 5 actual airframes that carried the Pedro paint scheme, 3 were ready at one time all the time and 4 airframes were air worthy at the end. I believe the rescue swimmers were sent to the USCG for training since the USMC doesn't have that type of school. http://www.marines.mil/News/News-Di...-cherry-point-conducts-final-dod-h-46-flight/

Now the closest air asset is the USCG base in Elizabeth City which is flying the MH-60s

As far as fishing, went out of Atlantic Beach and out to Lookout today, bit chilly but good to get the first trip of 2018 under the belt.
 
I think all of eastern NC hated when Pedro was shut down... Even my dog since the track from Newbern hospital to Pitt Hospital (usually this was critical newborn/infant transport) was right over the house. The CH-46s rotors would vibrate the house and the dog would run out and bark up at it. I've seen them pick up people from the surf and during Floyd, from house rooftops. Pedro saved a lot of lives. The USMC retired the CH-46 in 2015 and thus Perdo was ended. There were 5 actual airframes that carried the Pedro paint scheme, 3 were ready at one time all the time and 4 airframes were air worthy at the end. I believe the rescue swimmers were sent to the USCG for training since the USMC doesn't have that type of school. http://www.marines.mil/News/News-Di...-cherry-point-conducts-final-dod-h-46-flight/

Now the closest air asset is the USCG base in Elizabeth City which is flying the MH-60s

As far as fishing, went out of Atlantic Beach and out to Lookout today, bit chilly but good to get the first trip of 2018 under the belt.
What were yall trying for? Now that they closed the trout season my birthday trip to Harkers will likely consist solely of bourbon and oysters which is fine with me. I have heard that winter time drum fishing can be fun but never tried it.
 
What were yall trying for? Now that they closed the trout season my birthday trip to Harkers will likely consist solely of bourbon and oysters which is fine with me. I have heard that winter time drum fishing can be fun but never tried it.

Yea the closure is not fun but I do understand the reasoning. I was looking for schooling reds in the surf in front of Shack and then going to the Lookout jettie for black drum. Caught 4, 5-6lb back drum, 22" speck, and 18" flounder in Nov from shore at the Ft Macon jetty when I didn't feel like messing with the boat. Some good eating there. Right now red fishing is sight fishing on schools. For blacks, it is finding structure (jetty with a hole near it) and using bait shrimp.
 
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