ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 24, 1996 TAG: 9610240020
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOORS
The Outer Banks of North Carolina has seen considerable commercial and housing development in recent years, yet it still is not the place - thankfully - to go for night life, unless you are fishing for red drum, trout or stripers.
These three species have been stretching the lines of autumn anglers when the weather is cooperative, which isn't all that frequently along the 'Banks, where the seas hiss and moan as they break against more than 100 miles of beach.
Much of the fishing this time of the year is an after-dark affair, particularly for red drum, or channel bass. You can beat the drums during daylight hours, but the best success is in the dark, said Windy Eakes of the Red Drum tackle shop in
Buxton on Hatteras Island.
The hot spot is the tip of Cape Hatteras, succinctly known as The Point, where you stand in the powerful surf and the seas come surging up from the southwest and down from the northeast.
Drum catches have been enjoyed the past three weeks, Eakes said Wednesday, and the best is yet to be.
``They have been running 18 to 48 inches,'' she said.
Notice her report is in inches, not in pounds, like it would have been a few years ago. Most of the drum nowadays are caught and released rather than tugged up the road to be weighed. The big ones will weigh about one-pound-per-inch, and they will be old enough to be your grandmother.
A biologist recently declared that a 48-pounder was 65 years old. Anything that old merits respect and a chance to swim free from your hook, said Eakes.
Saturday's full moon should usher in some of the best action of the season, if the weather is cooperative. What you want at The Point is a wind that gets around to the south or southwest. In the sloughs on the North Beach, between Avon and Buxton, the time to go is when there is an easterly or northeasterly breeze.
A scattering of stripers can be found from Nags Head southward. The minimum keeper size in the ocean is 28 inches and the catch limit is two.
David Shephard Jr., of Roanoke, recently fished the south Nags Head area, where he said nighttime fishermen were catching huge numbers of stripers around Oregon Inlet bridge, most of them in the 18- to 22-inch bracket.
``They were catching up to 50 per person at night,'' he said. ``They are in there real, real heavy.''
Trout also were being landed after dark, said Shephard, but the thing that sent him home happy was a 6-pound flounder.
To the north, in the Chesapeake Bay, striped bass fishing has been outstanding. Charter boat operator Capt. Billy Pipkin told a caller from Roanoke, ``You've got to get down here. This is incredible. They are up to 30 inches. We have been catching and releasing 100 to 200 per day on the average.''
LEAN AND MEAN: Some would-be anglers complain they don't have time to fish, but James Whetzel of Christiansburg makes time most mornings from 6 to 6:45 before he reports to work at 7 a.m.
On a recent morning, Whetzel was casting a Jitterbug plug on light line to the New River at Snowville when something long, lean and mean engulfed the lure.
``Lord, help me reel this one in; it's a big one,'' Whetzel said as he held onto his throbbing fishing rod.
It was a big one, indeed, a 14-pound muskie that measured 39 inches.
SPEED KILLS: Tim McCoy and Brian Matherly of Dublin won the 13th annual Customer Appreciation Invitational Bass Tournament on Smith Mountain Lake with a 13.78-pound catch. The contest attracted 199 entries, most of them finding the bass tough to catch. Eight and one-quarter pounds would put you in the money.
McCoy and Matherly were fishing aboard McCoy's purple Bullet boat, one of the fastest on the lake, no little consideration at a time of year when the key to catching fish can be covering vast stretches of water with fast moving lures.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB