# Coastal Info



## kiddcoyachts (Jul 11, 2003)

My resolution for 2004 is to put together a coastal directory that is not just full of info but visually appealing. Both seem to be a task at hand. When I iron everything out it should be a nice collection of locations for the NC boater to look through before trips or during trips. If you guys want to drop some feedback I would appreciate it. Listings are free too so if you have a business email me and I will include it so people can find you easier. 

NC Coastal Guide


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## bassn (Jun 12, 2003)

That sounds like a great idea, but could you make a section for each state outlining piers and beaches too?

todd


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## kiddcoyachts (Jul 11, 2003)

thanks for the feedback Todd. I have already started thinking of other sections and I like your ideas more than almost all of mine so that sounds like the next upgrade. I will most likely do fishing locations in general. Thank you again bassn


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## chest2head&glassy (Jul 2, 2002)

Nice and simple graphics - loads fast.
One critique - On the forum, change the green font color on the carolina blue background. Very hard to see the words.


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## kiddcoyachts (Jul 11, 2003)

Ok I will change that as soon as I return from NY. I havent given that forum any love or attention yet. I will as soon as the coastal guide is a little more filled in. Thanks chest


I have been thinking of a graphic for the fishing section. I have been thinking about a graphic fish and a fishing pole. I will do a little more research about what sort of fish i should illustrate. I grew up fishing on a small lake in new york so we werent fortunate enough to catch the types that the NC crowd is fortunate enough to catch. I dont want to illustrate a smallmouth bass if that isnt the fish of choice for pier fisherman and surf fishing. When I finish the graphic Ill post it up here and everyone on this forum can say yay or nay. 

PS. Im taking a snow day and going to hang out on my friends boat. Everyone enjoy the snow.


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*Posting a big old drummie on there is always a safe bet... *


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## kiddcoyachts (Jul 11, 2003)

Nice. A drummie is a good choice. It is some type of NC fish correct? I will do the graphic after ny. The fishing section could take me a minute to research and put up. I did just expand the cities in NC to be covered to almost 50. The marinas are updated for each city. Next to be updated will most likely be the restaurants. Most of the directories out there are lame. Not that this is the shiznit but I hope it will be more deliberate than most. Lets face it....living and playing by the water is our good fortune.


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

as far as fish I can think of 4 good ones to use right off the bat, Dum, Stripers, King Mackerel, and Cobia. I will have to say this, there's nothing more exciting then watching a king come 5-6 foot out of the water with your bait in it's mouth  

Tight Lines


Tim


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

sharkbite said:


> *as far as fish I can think of 4 good ones to use right off the bat, Dum, Stripers, King Mackerel, and Cobia. I will have to say this, there's nothing more exciting then watching a king come 5-6 foot out of the water with your bait in it's mouth
> 
> Tight Lines
> 
> ...


 You're right about that...


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## kiddcoyachts (Jul 11, 2003)

dang you guys have me jonesing some fishing. I never made it out to do any surf fishing so I have yet to partake in that. I used to be happy when I caught a keeper bass or walleye and you guys have fish that try to get airborn...sweeet. Next month should be an ice fishing trip to Oneida Lake in CNY. Ill be happy if I catch a perch and not a cold. 

I am heading back to Carolina today. Thankfully.......Thermometer in the truck never made it above +9 and with windchill it was -10.


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

May's going to be the money when the kings showup, unless they're early  Last year i think the first ones were caught may 8th or close to there. I'll be on the piers king fishin may 11th-13th who knows when they'll show up but there will definately be a bunch of good sized blues and spanish come late april early may  


Tight Lines


Tim


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

Tim,I assume you're doing your "plankin" for kings down south? What was the best pier down there and how many did they catch? Spoiled by the good ole days,we caught close to 500 the yr I quit and started livebaiting from a boat.. One advantage you folks down there have is the dmf ruling that there is to be no drop-netting south of Cape Lookout. Just wondering if Ole Timmers down there think that ruling is having any affect?


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

From what I hear they are comin back down here in good numbers. As far as I know, Ocean Crest Pier got the most kings with 80 some. For some reason the fall run was pretty much non-exsistant with only a few fish caught. Most of them were caught during the spring with sometimes 8-10 fish decked a day. I've emailed the dmf a few times to try an get an answer as to why they let the king mackerel fishery above cape lookout goto sh!t but have yet to get an answer. I do all my plankin for kings on Ocean Crest off of Oak Island mostly during the week because the weekends are packed tight and usually all 50 some king spots are taken. 

I haven't really talked to the old timmers about the ruleing so I haven't gotten their imput yet but from what i've heard it has had dramatic effects on the fish populations north of cape lookout. 

I think it'd be worth getting some people together that use to fish the northern piers for kings and heading to the dmf office for a talk. Or even writing letters I think Randy Gregory is the one to contact at the dmf office regarding the stocks ect. [email protected] 

The ncfisheries website has the southern king mackerel population as viable but don't list anything on the northern population. I'm guessing they've forgotten there use to be a northern population. 


If anyone wants to head south to fish the piers I can take off pretty much any days I want, let me know and I'll meet ya down there  


Tight Lines


Tim


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## bluerunner (Jun 30, 2003)

i'll go along too, especially since i live only about 20-30 mins from sharkbite


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

They could probably say that the populations up here are viable as well. Reason is we do have a healthy offshore population of fish.. BUT the ones that USED TO BE inshore and cruise by the planks are "dropnetted out"....


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

yet again the shore anglers get screwed... Personally I think it's worth discussing with the dmf see if possably some middle ground can't be met so the shore anglers have a better chance of getting some kings. 
I can talk to some people and see if anything can be done but it will be a hard long battle. I'd like to see within the next 4-5 years the king fishing be as good up north as it is down here. Think stronger limits on the amount of inshore kings comms can take would help? Maybe splitting the limits between north of cape lookout and south would help. I know it'd piss off a lot of southern anglers but why should the fishery be great in one area and all but non-exsistant in another. Split it between them then there isn't as many kings being taken from one given area which will allow more to come inshore and possably will increase the #'s of fish being caught off the piers for both areas. Anyone have a chart of the migratory patterns for king mackerel? I'll see all the info I can dig up on 'em and try to put something together. 

I'm going to try and get ahold of Ron Smith or Jack Travelstead, both Mid-Atlantic Representatives for the king and spanish mackerel fisheries with the SAFMC. See if they could possably have any input. 


Tight Lines


Tim


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

Finally got an email back from DMF. 

"We did have a dip in our king mackerel landings for 2002. Over the long term, this does not alarm us right now. Everything that we look at as fishery managers for stock assessments looks good for king mackerel and landings for 2003 appear to be good. Our major concern right now is the reduction of some of our large fish. We don't have any real concrete numbers on this right now because they are rare fish anyway. But we are watching the stock assessments very closely in regards to the reduction of these large fish. Matter of fact, I will be participating in a new king mackerel stock assessment in Feb. and this will be a major topic. I collect aging samples at tournaments and those folks are very concerned." 

Will post more info as I receive it from DMF. 


Tight Lines 


Tim


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

DMF says from the numbers they have received only 7% of the king mackerel caught in the past 4 years has came from drop netting, the remaining % comes from hook and line commercial fisheries. They state the reason in the decline of fish caught off the piers is the amount of people targeting them now as recreational anglers. 

This is the quote from the email I received, "As far as the pier fishing, I grew up on the end of a pier. I seriously doubt that any pier in NC has ever caught 500 king mackerel in a year. I'm not disregarding what these folks are saying because I know fewer king mackerel are caught off of piers these days. That may be more a function of the number of people pier king fishing as anything else." Randy Gregory. 

Tight Lines


Tim


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*THAT IS BEYOND
_ IGNORANT OF THE FACTS!!!* 
I stand by that!! YES YES YES WE DID CATCH OVER 400 PLUS KINGS ON FRISCO!! YES YES YES I HEARD EVEN MORE WERE CAUGHT OFF TOPSAIL!!!! This guy needs to be educated,can I have his job?? 60plus K a yr and he is so "nieve" as to believe what I just saw you post?????????? 
I'm sorry folks,I'm very angry at the moment,let me get my composure back...............  
THERE ARE FACTS AND FIGURES FROM THE LATE 70's that back up what I am saying.. The king mack (inshore from dropnetting harvest)was way above any figures before or since.. BW has those figures,and *I WILL POST THEM!*


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

I asked him how old he was and what time frame he "grew up on the end of a pier" but never got an answer to that question  

Wonder how long he's been working for the NC DMF  

DD we should get together this spring for some king fishin, so I can hear some of your "oldsalt" stories from when the fishin was great  

Tight Lines


Tim


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*Well Tim,now that my blood preasure is back to "semi normal"*   
You dont' want to hear my storys Tim,they'd make you cry,gaurantee..  The things were thick back then,we used to catch them on gotcha plugs! We had a few folks that caught them while bottom fishing for spots! We had rods lined from the cleaning sink to the end with live baits on them! I've seen over 40 decked in a day! I personally have caught as many as 7 in one day,know a guy who caught 9! This was back from about 75 to 79.. Jody(my better half)used to be one of the pier managers at Frisco.. I quit fishing for them in 79,and bought a boat,but she worked there afterwards.. She told me coms would call the pier and ask were any being caught. *THEN* they would proceed in surrounding the pier with dropnets! Needless to say she lied from then on..  Didn't do any good though,population of kings just died afterwards.. 
PS I called Bernie(alias Baitwaster) tonight,he said he's going to try and round up those figures.. *MAYBE,just MAYBE that will educate your guy at dmf??* 
ALSO: do not take this as I am angry at you,I'm just angry because of a fishery that (in some folks mind) was "never there"


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## BaitWaster (Jan 8, 2004)

Here are the commercial harvest numbers from the DMF site. Tho, the pre-trip ticket numbers are suspect it’s clear something happened in around 1979-80 (which jives with Kenny's memory of the "good old days) and a king market/fishery opened up. Which is not unusual for commercial fishing for someone to figger out how to catch a fish using a certain gear and the word slips out and the numbers jump a ton.
. 
Year----Pounds
1972----8,920
1973----25,767
1974----40,249
1975----100,001
1976----156,405
1977----244,771
1978----171,877
1979----381,616
1980----768,946
1981----736,073
1982----1,207,108
1983----843,336
1984----757,598
1985----833,357
1986----1,006,128
1987----1,348,502
1988----886,344
1989----720,401
1990----1,130,805
1991----1,102,862
1992----1,034,694
1993----887,810
1994----849,962
1995----1,013,429
1996----793,733
1997----1,558,528
1998----1,143,342
1999----1,082,419
2000----1,046,821
2001----832,295
2002----772,658

I know Randy Gregory and he’s a good guy. I won’t guess his age but younger than Kenny & me (but no whipper–snapper fer sur  ) He’s been at the RSWSFC tournaments for a number of years digging and supervising digging ear stones out of kings to do aging studies on them, so he’s pretty knowledgeable on king macks.

Randy has recently taken the late Dale Ward’s job dealing with recreational fishing. And I suspect he got his numbers through Don Hesselman - the DMF guy in charge of commercial trip tickets 

But it could be that only 7% of the fish were caught drop netting (50,000# or so) but if the only fishery is out of Hatteras then the local effect to the Outer Banks Piers could be substantial.


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

BW thanks for the info  

cry or not i'd still love ta get together and do some feeshin  

I couldn't imagine that many fish being decked in one day, btw i'm only 25 so i missed out on the good ol days of fishin. The most i've seen was 8 and they were all close together within the first half hour of gettin our lines out, after that nothin for the rest of the day. 

Tight Lines


Tim


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*Hey Bernie!*

*Thankya,Thankya,Thankya!* Shazam! I told ya those figures would bear out what I was sayin! 
Look at 72 thru 78,that's a period when most com harvesters of king did it the right way. With drones and plainers.. After that FLA technology was brought down when FLA started "tightening the strings".. Many NC coms adopted the practice of dropnetting for kings also.. Ya can't blame THEM,heck it was like you fishing with a cane pole and me fishing with a trout line! 
Back then,very few regs were in existance also. No creel limit,no minimum size and so on.. So,not only did the dropnets have an impact,but so did the "weekend fisherman",charter captian,drone and plainer guy,and yes,even the planker fisherman as your guy said at the end of his post..
BW is very knowlegable about fisherys,and I'm probably "jumping the gun" wanting this man's job(that would be an understatement  )..  BUT,in light of what he said to you,do you at least see where I'm coming from??
Randy Gregory is probably a very nice fellow,and very knowlegeable as far as the fishery,but IMHO, they've got him "runnin down the ditch with blinders on"..
 



PS Sorry folks,after watching this fishery deteriorate as it has,I'm kind of a "loose cannon" on this issue...


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

sharkbite said:


> *BW thanks for the info
> 
> cry or not i'd still love ta get together and do some feeshin
> 
> ...


 *Tim,25?? You are a young wippersnapper...*   As far as getting together and fishin,anytime,would be a pleasure..


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## sharkbite (Jun 8, 2001)

Well it's snowin it's butt off here thismornin. 

Talked to a few piers managers from southern nc and the general consensus seems to be this. 

"Tim in regards to the commercial drop netting . Though not scientific I would only say that the Areas south of the Cape Fear River enjoyed a very productive King season this past year. As far as Proof I offer that the Souhtern Piers Oak Islands OCP 62+ and LBP 30+ totals were Greater than all the Other Northern Piers combined Totals by many multipules. Southern, NC Recreational Boat Anglers had a superior season."

I'm goin back to bed where it's warm 

Tight Lines

Tim


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## master baiter (Aug 8, 2003)

sharkbite if i were you i would take this old chinese proverb to heart.
"wise old fisherman say--we know what we talk about"
commercial fishing that targets individual species is a sportsmans nightmare. the makeral is a top predator, because of that it doesn"t reproduce in large numbers. i can say without a doubt that sportsfishing has declined significantly in the last three decades. imagine what it must have been like to horse giant reds from the surf with stout wooden poles and no reel! i can remember as a boy on the outer banks waiting my turn for my dad to hand me the rod to fight a big king! usually it wasn"t a long wait either. them days seem to be pretty much gone. Can we get them back, YES! Are we willing to get them back as a populace? I'm not sure but at the rate we are going i think not.


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*Master Baiter*

The really sad part is the NC fisherman,*were * using fishing techniques (drone spoon and plainer) that were selective,they could cull the fish and keep what was "viable" for the reasource.. Since the advent of dropnets,it put a whole different light on the issue,IMHO. You see,there is no releasing a small king from a dropnet,and if you set right,you "mohawk em",and they're ALL DEAD.. A waterman with plainers can catch and release,yet still not hurt the fishery,if there are poundage laws and size limits in place.
Really good discussion folks,wish this was falling on the "ears" of the DMF and not just on a fishing board..


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