Well fishing has been nothing short of outstanding here in Beaufort and the Crystal Coast of North Carolina. A hop, skip, and a jump from Atlantic Beach and Morehead City will put you on the water within sight of Cape Lookout and some spectacular inshore and nearshore fishing on the flats and along the beach. We had an epic chopper bluefish run and those fish stuck around until the second week in June. Near the end of May we started finding nice schools of redfish on the flats and we are still having awesome red drum fishing most days. The fish are still around, but they are in their summer pattern, meaning they are mostly spread out and we are covering water powerfishing with gold spoons and topwaters to find them. Some schools are still around, but not the massive 50-100 fish schools we were finding a few weeks ago. When the weather allows, you can cast net some live bait and head to a nearshore (within 15 miles) reef or wreck and find some willing fish including king mackerel, a few Mahi Mahi and some cudas. Bottom fishing can be strong also, but we have been focusing more on the pelagic fish lately. Shark fishing will provide plenty of action on the windier days and spanish mackerel and bluefish are providing plenty of action for families, kids and novice anglers. Come see what the Cape Lookout light tackle fishing is all about! Tight Lines, Capt. Will

Finally got the boat back in service after some repairs and three long crappy winters in Coastal, NC. Hopefully, we are seeing the beginning of a real spring here next week. Raining cats and dogs today. On Sunday, we had a shakedown cruise and a quick fishing trip combo. Cold water temps at 61*, but managed to find a few chopper bluefish.

We continued our epic inshore slot red drum fishing with a little bit of topwater speckled trout fishing at the Cape on into August then shifted our aim over to the Neuse river looking for the giant red drum on their annual migration. Well after about a week of looking with not much to show for it, they showed up big time! We have been catching the giant red drum on artificial lures in the morning and well into the day on some days. Awesome fishing. If you want to book a light tackle giant red drum trip, call now. Dates for September are filling up. P.S. The ocean is fishing well at Cape Lookout also. On days nice enough to get out there, we have been catching nice Spanish Mackerel, bluefish and a few big fish offshore on the wrecks.

We have done a lot of fishing since the last report, and most of it has been great when the wind isn't ripping! We have also been able to dodge most of the storms! Red drum fishing on topwaters and gold spoons has been outstanding. Yesterday we had one of the best topwater bites on a slick calm overcast day. The days before that have been great also. This year class is epic. Here's hoping they survive the gauntlet and we have another great year class coming! We've started to catch a few speckled trout both jigging and on topwater. Flounder are around too. Keeping bottom contact with a 1/4oz jig works for them. Shark chumming has been excellent with black tips and spinners being the main participants. Have seen some tarpon in the chum slick, but they won't bite wire and don't stick around long! Book a trip to get in on this action!

Went looking for some surface action and found some. They were picky and we had trouble making the casts, but we caught a few spanish mackerel on casting metal. Then we went to look behind the shrimp trawls when the action slowed. The sharks were eager to play! We then pointed it to the house and ran across an awesome frenzy of 3-5 pound bluefish ravaging schools of bait in shallow water. We proceeded to catch as many as we wanted on topwaters and had a ball doing it!

Tried the same thing as the day before, but started where we had the best luck yesterday. Didn't have a red hot bite and broke off the nicer grouper bites. No cobia. Landed one throwback grouper then made a move. When we got to the spot, we started chunking menhaden and a Mahi swam right up to the boat. We were lucky enough to have him stick around long enough to present a DOA swimmin' mullet and have him hit it, hook up and pull off. Casted back at him and he ate it again! This time we hooked, fought, jumped and landed him! Then we ran in and played with the big blacktip sharks behind the shrimp trawlers. Awesome day!