Doug Shores (blue shirt) and Tim Barrier caught these king mackerel at Kure Beach Pier. Trolley rigging for kings is popular at ocean piers. Photo by Mike Marsh.

Saltwater game fish populations are subject to more ups and downs than an amusement park roller coaster ride. While fishery management plans can and have smoothed many of the peaks and valleys in the indices of many of North Carolina's favorite saltwater fish, there is little that can be done when environmental factors exert an even larger influence on populations of a specific species than can be offset by tweaking such angler-induced mortality factors as commercial quotas and by catch and recreational angler retention and catch-and-release mortality figures that can run as high as 15 percent.

Long-term statistics are one of the best ways to predict which species an angler has the best success of finding and catching when he tries his luck in the brine. But even statistics have their weaknesses. Fish that are abundant on a coastwide basis may be absent from a localized area where they may have been found in the recent past. Conversely, some highly migratory fish like striped bass, summer flounder and weakfish, may be so abundant in some places that their numbers appear utterly inexhaustible even as fishery managers may say they are in short supply in the overall scheme of things.

So, we've tried to narrow down the playing field, selecting those fish anglers should target if they want to have the best chance of catching something instead of going home disappointed. Using statistics and analyzing anecdotal evidence may not be the perfect way to predict angler success. But it's way ahead of playing a guessing game. For the best saltwater success, anglers should set their sights on red drum, flounder, speckled trout, bluefish, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel and dolphin so they can head for the coast properly prepared.

RED DRUM
Red drum are called by many names, but they are still the same fish. In fact, the red drum is so esteemed it is the official North Carolina saltwater fish. The biggest drum are called channel bass, old drum and adult drum. They are distinctly different fish in size, habitat and name than juvenile fish, which are typically called redfish, puppy drum or rat reds.

The juvenile fish are less than 4 years old and live mostly in the estuaries and along the surf zone. Once they achieve adulthood at a length of 27 inches and a weight of 10 pounds or so, they head for the open Atlantic.

Anglers run into the adult fish when trolling near the bottom or bottom-fishing within 20 miles of the coastline, especially in fall and winter. Keeping ocean fish is illegal and all of the adult fish are outside the legal inshore slot size of 18 to 32 inches anyway.

But anglers who want to catch and release these huge redfish, which can easily top 50 pounds, head for a few specific places. One place that has become legendary is the lower Neuse River/Pamlico Sound area, where adult fish migrate to spawn each year beginning in July. They stay around until August or September.