Spring through summer is the best chance to tangle with giant redfish off North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
But be sure to bring your A-game—and an extra rod.

Due primarily to successful fisheries management in the last decade, redfish have become increasingly
prevalent along the coast of the southeastern United States. Red drum, spotted bass, channel bass—whatever name you use, it’s all the same fish, and tight restrictions on both commercial and recreational fishermen are finally paying big dividends. Anglers from Jacksonville to Virginia’s Eastern Shore are now enjoying the same catches that fishermen recall from the “good old days” before redfish numbers started declining in the 1970s.

Traditionally, catching any redfish larger than 30 pounds on a fly has been considered the benchmark for a trophy specimen. But with population numbers and sizes improving, why not set the standard even higher, say to 40 or 50 pounds? If you’re a fly rodder willing to put the time and energy into finding and catching a truly huge red drum, this goal is not farfetched, and North Carolina’s Outer Banks is an excellent spot for the hunt.

In fact, the Outer Banks is home to 16 of 20 line-class IGFA records for redfish, one current flytippet record and a former 20-pound tippet record, as well as Chico Fernandez’s 42-pound, 5-ounce red drum caught on 12-pound tippet with Captain Vernon Barrington on May 12, 1981, in the waters behind Oregon Inlet. However, if your sole purpose is to catch a big red for a record, North Carolina is not your place today. A few years back, North Carolina Marine Fisheries imposed tight restrictions on red drum size and bag limits. The rules state that only fish from 18 to 27 inches can be kept, and the bag is one fish per day. This makes weighing a red drum for a potential record tough, if not impossible. But if mental images and printed photos will suffice for you, then trophy-size fish await.

a potential record tough, if not impossible. But if mental images and printed photos will suffice for you, then trophy-size fish await.

Every spring, summer, and fall, more big schools of reds are showing up in North Carolina waters. Traditional hot spots on North Carolina’s Outer Banks are Ocracoke Inlet, Hatteras Inlet, and around the shoals at Hatteras Island’s Cape Point. A somewhat “new” hot spot is the southwestern side of Pamlico Sound around the mouth of the Neuse River and the surrounding area. Oregon Inlet can also be a good location for reds during the summer months, but it’s not as consistent as the others and is really more of a lottery ticket. Cape Lookout is showing its hand in the red drum fishery as well. Over the last few years, the area’s fall false-albacore anglers have found schools of 20- to 40- pound reds on the eastern side of Cape Lookout along the beach of Core Banks.

However, fly fishing for big reds in North Carolina is not about skinny-water sight casting. It is a sight fishery, but it takes place in deep water around the inlets and in the open sounds or ocean. Luck plays a big factor in finding the fish, yet there is considerable skill involved. In clear water, the big schools of reds glow a coppery red to yellow color and can be easily seen. Feeding reds are even easier to find as they blast into schools of bunker. Your height above the water is the key to seeing fish. Many anglers who equip their boats with towers for cobia fishing have found that the added height makes finding both cobia and big reds much easier. But the fish are not always in clear water; turbid water in Pamlico Sound will hold feeding fish, and anglers need to be able to recognize signs of actively feeding fish. Reds will push any type of bait to the top, whether it is crabs, menhaden, bluefish or even shrimps.

Like many of the fly fisheries along the Outer Banks, this fishing is down and dirty, requiring quick casts, sinking lines, and big flies. Anglers must be prepared to deliver a fly quickly and get it down into the school. When fishing to any school of reds, the fly must be in front and at or below the fish’s eye level. Most of the time these schools are moving quickly and not looking up. If you can do your part, the reds will usually do theirs. Once you hook a fish, the next job is to cut it out of the school. They like to stay with their kind, and only teamwork, good boat handling, and hard pressure will turn the fish.

Ocracoke Inlet
Carolina captain Norman Miller has probably seen as many redfish as anyone on the planet. His fishery around Ocracoke Inlet is North Carolina’s mecca for big reds. Captain Miller primarily guides conventional anglers who throw three- to five-ounce bucktails on spinning rods, and when visibility is poor, he takes them bait fishing in the shoals on either side of Ocracoke Inlet. But Miller has also successfully guided fly anglers. His key while fly rodding is a long, quick cast with as fast a sinking head as the angler can handle. He likes flies four to five inches long in white, yellow, and chartreuse. Flies such as the Half and Half and Whistler are perfect. They sink fast, are quite castable, and have the motion of a jig.

Local angler Bill Hogan is a sightcasting fanatic for both reds and cobia, and he likes classic sight conditions when looking for reds: that means light wind, clear skies, and clear water. He concentrates his search on the outside of the oceanside shoals on both sides of Ocracoke Inlet. Hogan has rigged a 26- foot Privateer with a tower and controls to aid in his search. He looks for schools of menhaden or pelicans diving on menhaden and concentrates his search there.

The Ocracoke season starts in late March or early April when the water temperatures reach 60 to 62 degrees. The spring season tapers down around the end of

May, but it is not unusual for a school or two to use the inlet until late June.

Western Pamlico Sound
Capt. George Beckwith fishes the western side of Pamlico Sound and around the mouth of the Neuse River. Along with Miller, George has assisted in many research projects concerning red drum, including their spawning and population movements. Beckwith recently added a tower to his 23-foot center console and is spending more time looking for fish to sight-cast to and spending less time bait fishing.

The western Pamlico prime time is from mid-June until late September. This also coincides with the redfish spawn. By the first of October the spawn is over on the western side of Pamlico, and the fish move back toward the ocean. Spawning times mean big, mixed groups of fish. Ten years ago, if you caught a fish longer than 40 inches, it was an old adult and almost always greater than 40 pounds. But because of the strict conservation methods in place today, a good number of the 5- to 10-year-old fish grow to about 40 inches long. A young 40-inch fish can weigh from 18 to 48 pounds, and it can be sexually active but will not be as filled out as a 40-inch, 40-year-old fish.

The western side of Pamlico Sound is made up of marsh islands, big shoals like Brant Shoals, oyster bars, and oyster rocks, all teeming with life. Beckwith’s first method of finding the reds is to scout these areas for actively feeding fish. Redfish will eat a wide variety of prey, and they move fast, pushing crabs, menhaden, mullet, and even flounder to the surface. Many times the water is not clear, and Beckwith needs to anticipate the direction the fish are moving and where they will come up next. He recommends quick casts with sinking lines from 450 to 550 grains and a big fly to get down into the schools. “A good shooting-head system is very effective,” Beckwith says. Lefty’s Deceivers and Half and Halfs are two of the most effective patterns, and white, chartreuse and white, and chartreuse/olive/white are productive colors.

On the rare days when it is slick calm, Beckwith’s other method of finding reds entails a lot of riding around and scouting in the tower, which can be very rewarding. Big schools will lay up in water from 2 to 20 feet deep in the lower Neuse River and in mid- Pamlico Sound between the Neuse River and Ocracoke Island. On such days you can spot fins, color, a push, or a V wake. Beckwith says stealth is the best approach. “Do not push the school with your boat. Try to parallel the school, and let the fish decide their direction. If you force the issue, you’re done,” he says. In these situations, Beckwith prefers intermediate fly lines Minnows and Lefty’s Deceivers are two flies that you can easily throw and land without a big splash. Try to throw ahead of the schools and let the fly swing into the fish, then strip. If they are jumpy, lining the school can be curtains. Beckwith also offers a warning about the weather in the lower Pamlico Sound. Besides being the hottest place in North Carolina, the beautiful slick-calm weather can change to severe thunderstorms, lightning, and wind in an instant. Keep an eye to the sky, particularly if you are in the middle of the sound, because there is nowhere to hide.

Locations under Development
A couple of other locations are starting to develop a redfish fly fishery. One is outside Oregon Inlet and south along the beaches of Rodanthe, Salvo, Waves, and Avon. The waters outside Oregon Inlet are migration paths for stripers, cobia, and reds. Many of these species spawn and spend the summer in Chesapeake Bay north of Oregon Inlet. Every spring there is a big push of reds moving back to their summer location on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. When found, these schools look like golden buffalo wandering north over the plains. More reds are found during the cobia migration in the months of late May and June, when thousands of migrating cobia swim by Oregon Inlet on their way to the Chesapeake Bay to summer and spawn. Anglers searching for the brown bombers also will find schools of reds moving north toward the Eastern Shore. These fish can be massive—more than 60 pounds. Many times the schools of reds are on top, pushing and glowing gold; other times they are deeper, actively feeding on menhaden, schools of threadfin herrings, or even Spanish sardines.

Schools of reds can be found all summer in the water just outside of Oregon Inlet. In July and August, it appears the males are in spawning mode, but no science has been done to support the theory.

Capt. Sarah Gardner fishes most of the year in and around Oregon Inlet, and has had an uncanny ability to put her fly anglers on big reds here. After spotting a school, Gardner prefers to position her boat parallel to the school with the sun at her back. She will motor the boat just ahead of the fish and have her anglers cast ahead of the school so the fly can drop down. Sometimes the schools are 20-plus feet under the surface. Gardner prefers a heavy Half and Half in chartreuse and white, and a 10-weight rigged with a Rio Deep Sea 400- to 500-grain head or a shooting head rigged with 30 feet of T-14 and a fivefoot, 20-pound leader. Gardner’s biggest tip is to be prepared: Always have the big redfish rod on the boat and ready to go. Gardner never leaves the dock expecting to catch a big red on fly, but she will verse her cobia anglers on the Red Drum Fire Drill just in case they encounter a school.

Another up-and-coming red drum location is Cape Lookout. In October and November around Cape Lookout and on the eastern beaches of the Core Banks, the albie fly anglers are running into more and more schools of big reds. Gardner and Capt. Rob Pasfield put their albie anglers on reds several times during the 2005 and 2006 albie season.

Big schools of menhaden and small gray trout and croakers cover the bottom at this time, giving reds plenty to snack on. This is migration time, and these baitfish stack up on the east side of the Cape waiting for water temperatures to fall and for their eventual move to the west side of the cape. Most of the reds at Cape Lookout are spotted with bottom machines rather than eyes. On most fish-finders, reds display a signature similar to stripers, and they can be found in anywhere from 15 to 60 feet of water. As with winter North Carolina striper fishing, this is all about getting the fly down in the “mark.” Cape Lookout reds average in the mid 30- to 40-pound range. Once again, this is a sinking-line fishery, and getting deep quickly is key. There are often big schools of migrating cow-nose rays swimming along the Core Banks, and very often there is a school of reds up to a hundred or so yards behind them.

General fly tackle for North Carolina’s big reds should be 10- to 12-weight rods with sinking lines weighing from 450 to 500 grains or shooting heads made of Rio’s T-14. You should also keep a backup rod rigged and ready to go. Leaders can be short, say five to six feet long, with a class tippet of your choice and a 30- to 40-pound shock tippet. Your fly box should be loaded with four- to six-inch-long Half and Halfs in white, chartreuse, chartreuse and white, olive and white, or yellow and white. Dan Blanton’s Whistler is another great choice, and a bucktail Half and Half also works very well.

As in all extreme fly-fishing adventures, bring your A-game. North Carolina’s huge redfish are not an easy fly fishery. Be prepared to get skunked. But patience and a good game plan can pay off in a big, golden way.