Radio Island, North Carolina
On The Fly Saltwater
January 2024
By Jimmy Jacobs
Ordinarily the crew from On The Fly South has a record of showing up to go fish various location just prior to, during or immediately following hurricanes. Such instances have happened from Belize to Florida to North Carolina. That said, it’s surprising that folks around the southland still entertain the idea of hosting any of our ventures. We seem to be a bad omen?
There is an exception to that rule, however. Twice we have headed to the Cape Lookout region of the North Carolina coast in the fall months to target false albacore. Those fish show up just offshore along with the colder fall weather.
Back in late October we had a trip planned, with our headquarters situated in Atlantic Beach, just west of Morehead City. This time when we arrived, our guide informed us he would take us fishing, but we’d likely not see any albies. The weather had taken a turn, with daytime temperatures hitting the 80s and the sun shining. It was simply too nice to catch false albies, thus we called off that fishing!
We had driven more than 450 miles to get there and it looked like it was turning into a waste of time. On the other hand, we were at the shore and had perfect beach weather. Still, we wanted to toss some flies to hungry fish.
As mentioned, this was our second such “rodeo” in this area. Several years back we also visited Harkers Island in the same area and ended up with weather suited to shorts and tee shirts. This time we fell back on the same plan B from that earlier venture. We headed to Radio Island.
The island sits in the Newport River delta, between Morehead City to the west and Beaufort to the east. It offers a good public beach access on its eastern shore, along which the current sweeps in right to the edge of the sand on changing tides. The fishing here mostly centers on catching seatrout in the cooler months near the jetties at the south end of the beach. But, of course, we were not here during “colder” weather, so the trout were not present.
On our earlier trip, we had managed to catch some bluefish by casting streamers from the shore, so we planned to try that and fall back on just enjoying the beach if the fish did not cooperate. We first walked from the parking lot at the mid-point of the island down to the south end of the beach and began working our way back to the north.
Tossing chartreuse and white Clouser Minnows with lead eyes near the rock jetty yielded just a single gray snapper that’s aggression greatly exceeded its size. Next as I worked my way along the sand, targeting rips in the outgoing flow of the tide. The first cast in this area produced a take, which proved to be an undersized flounder.
The next take was from something a bit bigger. In fact, after the fish took the fly it hugged the bottom, refusing to come to the surface. The way it pulled I was convinced I’d hooked a sizable redfish. However, once on the beach it turned out to be a 15-inch lizard fish. I have caught such ugly denizen in the Florida Keys and along the west coast of the Florida peninsula, but they were always tiny, never bigger that 6 or 7 inches. It was a surprise how ruggedly this one battled.
From that point, Polly Dean and I caught several more of these hefty lizard fish. Thankfully, we also had a few bigger flounder mixed in as well. In talking with local anglers we encountered, the flounder were the only game fish being caught. A number of these were larger than the 15-inch minimum for harvest, but despite their appeal on the dinner table, they all had to be released. The 2023 flounder season in Old North State waters lasted for just two weeks during the month of September.
Still, anytime you have fish hitting your offerings, it is hard to call it a bad day on the water.
The bottom line was, it’s best to always have a plan B when you go fishing. As Travis W. Redfish – the character played by rock and roller Meatloaf in the 1980 musical comedy movie Roadie – observed, “Everything will work, if you let it.”
On this day, we managed to let Radio Island work for us.
