Live baits work extremely well for catching speckled trout, too. When fishing the bait schools, it’s a simple matter to use a cast net to catch enough bait to fill a livewell or bait bucket. Mud minnows and live shrimp can also be bought at seafood dealers, bait and tackle shops and marinas.

Live baits for specks are usually fished on float rigs. The float allows the bait to swim enticingly while suspending it above the bottom. Specks are usually caught in shallow water above or near structure, so float rigs also prevent the hook from hanging on the structure.

A popping float rig, which consists of a stiff wire running through a plastic float with plastic beads on both sides, has become very popular in North Carolina waters with the introduction of scent-impregnated, biodegradable baits.

The soft bait is hooked on a jighead suspended 2 feet below the float on a mono leader. As the float drifts past likely structure, the rod is lifted and then dropped sharply, causing the beads to pop against the float twice -- once on the lift and once on the fall. The sound attracts trout to the bait.

Specks can also be caught with the old standby lures -- the solid hard-plastic swimming minnow imitations and the grub hooked on a jighead.

FLOUNDER
The two species of flounder most likely to be caught by North Carolina anglers are summer flounder and southern flounder. The summer flounder is mostly caught at hard structure areas just offshore of the beaches, while the southern flounder is the flatfish of inshore waters. Still, their ranges overlap, so either fish may be caught during any single fishing expedition.

Drifting inlets is a common way to catch flounder. The bait is fished on a Carolina rig (better known on the coast as a flounder rig). The rig consists of a swivel, egg or torpedo sinker, 18-inch mono leader and a wide bend or Kahle hook. Some sinkers have integral swivels to prevent twisting and these are the best style to use in swift waters to prevent line twist. For slow drifts, the standard sinker sliding on the line above the swivel of a standard Carolina rig works fine. All that is needed is enough sinker weight to keep the bait on the bottom.

The most important part of any flounder rig is the hook. The outer parts of a flounder’s mouth have thin membranes and the fish, with its flattened body, can put on an incredible burst of power that will dislodge a poorly set hook. Flounder that throw the hook after being fought for a while usually do so just as the fish spots the landing net. The odds for a tossed hook skyrocket if the fish’s head breaks the surface.

The lesson learned from a thrown hook is “use enough hook,” to paraphrase the famous Southport outdoorsman and author, Robert Ruark. Large, wide bend hooks get the job done and should be sized according to the size of the bait and the fish expected to bite.

Southport is famous not only for Ruark, but also for the state’s biggest flatfish, with summer flounder abounding at nearby artificial reefs and southern flounder abundant in the Intracoastal Waterway and the Cape Fear River. Every year, dozens of citation flounder weighing more than 5 pounds are caught from the area. However, Morehead City, Swansboro and Topsail Beach also have reputations for producing big flatfish.