SPOTTED SEATROUT
Of all inshore species, spotted seatrout or speckled trout shine the brightest for this season. These beautiful, feisty game fish are being caught like never before.

Spotted seatrout, also called speckled trout or specks, are listed as a “viable” species by NCDMF. The fish spend their life cycles in estuaries, resulting in the fact that environmental factors rather than fishing pressure have relatively greater influence on their size and abundance. In North Carolina, cold winters are bad news for specks and speck fishermen, since extended freezing temperatures can cause the population to plummet. Hurricanes, red tides and excessive fresh water entering estuaries also ruin speckled trout habitats. But in good years, the trout have large spawns and they mature quickly. For these reasons, speckled trout boom-and-bust cycles have become legendary.

Specks are caught by anglers fishing with jigs, live baits and lures along grassbeds and oyster reefs, at hard structure such as docks and rock seawalls, from ocean fishing piers and in the surf. They grow fast, have protracted spawning over the summer and fall, and therefore have a tremendous reproductive potential. They can begin spawning at a length of around 10 inches.

Winters of 2004-06 were mild, resulting in some spectacular speckled trout fishing, with plenty of big fish caught and large numbers of fish being caught at places like the Wrightsville Beach jetties, Cape Lookout jetty, Fort Macon jetty, Cedar Island seawall and Ocracoke, Topsail and Hatteras inlets. New River has hosted some really nice speck runs. The speck fishing should remain excellent barring severe weather during the winter of 2007.

While the speck fishing in 2004 was excellent, with 383,861 pounds landed by recreational fishermen, it improved to 624,076 in 2005, nearly equaling a record high landing of 690,003 pounds in 1994. But 2006 eclipsed all recorded recreational landings by nearly 50 percent with a total recreational catch of 925,612 pounds.

Specks can be caught all year long, with the best fishing in late summer, fall and winter. The recreational bag limit for speckled trout is 10 fish with a minimum length of 12 inches.

Yellowfin Tuna
One of the brightest spots for offshore fishing is big, yellow and shiny. It swims in abundance on the yellowfin tuna grounds. These ferocious fighters school in early summer and late fall and usually attack baits and lures set in trolling spreads en masse.