Walden Creek is a long, winding creek that flushes into the Cape Fear River about four or five miles upstream from Southport. Price said that he fishes Walden Creek when it's cold, because those are the only times of year that the creek holds enough baitfish to attract sufficient numbers of flounder, trout and drum.

"Walden Creek is good in the dead of the winter, in the late fall and the early spring," he said. "It holds bait the best when it's real cold."

McCray runs the Rod & Reel Shop, a tackle shop in the village of Supply, which is just across the waterway from Holden Beach. He is located, he admits, in an area where fishing in coastal rivers and creeks can be "fabulous."

"There are resident fish that never leave these places; they're fat and happy and making a living," McCray said (910-842-2034). "The creeks and rivers around here are fabulous. You've got the Lockwood Folly and Shallotte rivers, Pound Creek, Davis Channel and several of those creeks behind Baldhead Island. Baldhead is a utopia of creeks."

McCray said that those creeks can hold puppy drum, flounder, speckled trout and sheepshead, depending on the makeup of the waterway and the time of year. Puppy drum and flounder spend most of the year in them; trout show up heavy in the fall, and sheepshead are around throughout the summer -- although their range is much more restricted than the others.

"I'll typically target one species, but there will be plenty of chance for by-catch, depending on the type of structure in the creek," McCray said. "Flounder like to be around oyster rocks, but they don't like to lie in them. They don't like to put that nice white belly on the oysters. Shells, yes; live oysters, no. Puppy drum, on the other hand, don't mind that at all.

"Sheepshead love all kinds of crustaceans, so pier posts, old dilapidated posts, will have more barnacles and hold them."

McCray's first targets are deep holes back in the two rivers closest to his home. "Obviously, deep holes are going to be your primary targets, because all the little critters that like to hide in the (marsh) grass at low tide have to come back out into the deeper water," he said.

"Lockwood Folly River is eaten up with little marsh creeks. If you can find a tributary creek that's big enough to be navigable at low water, you want to get in and fish it as the water is falling. Some of them will be big enough to fish early on the falling tide, and the mouth of those creeks will be very productive at low tide. With your smaller creeks, you need to fish the mouth of those creeks at low tide.

"What you have to understand is that you're in the flatlands, and the swamps and low-lying areas have to fill up and drain with the tidal changes."

McCray likes to fish both live bait and artificials. "That depends on the time of year," he said. "If you're competing with live bait, fishing with live bait is the easiest choice. If you're going to fish with artificials -- if you're good with artificials -- you can catch 'em, but it's difficult to use a plastic wiggly thing in the middle of the summer when you've got about 10 million shrimp per square inch. Later in the fall, they are better."

Whatever you prefer in the way of inshore fishing, there's likely to be some of it in these creeks, and plenty of holding water to congregate the fish you're after.

All you have to do is read between those little blue lines.