Outdoors

Elusive flounder arrive in time for Hatteras dinner

I have been very fortunate to visit many Atlantic coast beaches over the years. From the time I was a young child with my family until present day with my wife and children, I have made one or two yearly visits to beaches in the Bahamas, New Brunswick and many others in between.

In late June we packed up my truck and headed to the famed Outer Banks and Hatteras Island. We chose Hatteras Village for the week-long stay due to its small population and quality fishing opportunities.

The town is located on the bottom tip of the Outer Banks in North Carolina and is noticeably different from most popular beach destinations. There is no boardwalk, no flashing neon signs, and most importantly, no crowds on the beach.

Instead of fighting for a spot on the sand, Hatteras Village offers open beach areas in front of every house. In fact, one Saturday morning, my family was the only one on the beach for as far as you could see in either direction. We also enjoy the ability to have fires on the sand and drive our 4×4 vehicles in special areas of Hatteras Island and its national seashore.

While I could go on about the many other reasons what I love the southern Outer Banks, this is an outdoors column so I will stick to fishing experiences.

Although I am by no means a seasoned surf fisherman, I have always enjoyed sitting on the beach in a lawn chair and waiting for a bite on one of my rods. During our last trip to the area my kids enjoyed catching small sharks along with some other fish including mullet, spot and croakers during the day.

Once the kids are in bed my brother Ty and I head back down to the water to do some night fishing for sharks. He caught a nice one during our last trip while we tore off on a few others. This year we hoped to land an even bigger one.

On our first night I caught some small ones along with a trout. We also had several other fish quickly tear the line which we assumed were shark.

What we were hoping to avoid was hooking into a ray instead of a shark. The large ones, while fun to fight, are nearly impossible to land in the surf and can keep you on the line for extended periods of time due to the way their bodies use ocean floor to their advantage.

During the previous trip I landed one during the day that was easily bigger than the hood of my truck. While it was a fun fight, I was disappointed it was not a shark.

During our second night of fishing I had a big hit on my tuna cut bait and my spool was singing as whatever was on the end of my line headed out to the deep water from where it was hooked just behind the breakers.

I set the hook and tried to make sure the drag was set correctly. It ran me up and down the beach and as soon as I thought I was gaining ground, it would make another run. After an hour, we were still battling in the pitch black when I finally saw some white in the water with the help of Ty's flashlight. For a split second I was excited as I thought it was a decent shark.

Unfortunately, when I got it even closer 15 minutes later, it was a ridiculously large ray. Including the tail it was easily six feet long and close to four feet wide. I knew I was not going to able to land this despite wanting to get a photo to show my sleeping kids. While it was in the water we were able to get the hook out without getting hit by its tail.

With fishing slow in the surf for two days we decided to give up on the beach and fish the sound. Some locals later told me that large Spanish mackerel had arrived early and driven the smaller fish out of the surf.

Our first trip to the sound we were joined by my son River. The 6-year-old did well and landed several small fish as we watched the sun set in the distance. That sight and experience with my soon to be first grader was better than any fish I could have hooked.

The rest of our freelance angling focused on catching flounder. For more than a dozen years we made trips to Maine to fish flounder off our own boat and regularly caught more than 100 per day for a week or two at a time. I also have great early memories of fishing flounder in Maryland as a youngster.

But it had been a while since I caught a flounder and I wanted to simply land one regardless off the size. After talking to a few different owners of local tackle shops, it was obvious the flounder bite was not exactly on fire. In fact we were told that if we could get one 15-inch keeper between the two of us, that would be a successful day.

Not deterred by the pessimism of the locals, we headed to the sound to try and land a few flounder. We drove out on the sand, parked and waded out a few hundred yards in the water to where you could see a channel. It did not take long until we were reeling in flounder quite regularly.

Unfortunately, they were the smaller variety of unique fish. Eventually Ty hooked into a nice one as I cheered him waste deep in the salt water.

At this point I need to admit we were definitely not prepared to fish flounder this way. We did not have a net and these fish are violent swimmers that do not make landing one an easy task. We also did not have a stringer in case we actually did land a keeper for dinner.

The one thing I did have was a small tape measure to make sure the fish we kept were legal. After we were able to land the fish and confirm it was over the legal size, we realized we were a long way from the truck with nowhere to put the fish.

We had a plastic bag that held our rubber jigs so we tried to put it in that. As soon as it hit the water, the fish tore a hole in it and headed toward the bottom. Fortunately, I made a quick lunge and pinned the fish with my foot. Ty went down and got it as we laughed realizing we needed a better plan.

He took his fish and made the long wade back to the truck to grab a smaller cooler. By the time he got back I had an 18-incher waiting. He later topped that one with a 21-inch slab. We fished for another hour or two catching the flounder with regularity until we called it a day.

On the way off the sand, someone stopped us to inspect our fish. She told us ours were the first keeper flounder she had seen in more than two weeks. That definitely backed up the stories we heard of the flounder fishing being tough on the island.

Whether it was luck or some good fishing on our part, we proudly took some delicious flounder back to the beach house that night to join the shrimp and scallops for a delicious cookout. We actually had enough to bring some back to Mifflin County for a cookout on the Fourth of July.

Those were not the only delicious fish we brought back to the house that week. But that exciting outing will be featured in my next column.