This scene of the Southport waterfront was taken from the old pilot
tower during the early 1960s when the Tar Heel Sports Shop stood at
the end of Howe Street and next to a public launching ramp erected
and maintained by the City of Southport. The point of land shown at
the top left was the outer limits of what now is Waterfront Park.
The fishing report
By Jim Harper
Staff Writer
"Southport charter boats had a real
good week," Steve Smith reported
from Sure Catch Tackle on Tuesday.
"Bottom fish are still abundant -
nice American reds, grouper,
beeliners and large sea bass."
Smith said that most of the reef
fish activity had been southwest of
Frying Pan tower, adding that some
good kingfish catches have been
logged b / bottom fishermen who
light-lined at the same time.
Capt. Chris Pardue on the Mar
huna had 11 kings, a dolphin and an
amberjack to go with a nice bottom
catch on Friday, Smith said, and had
ten kings and a barracuda weighing
nearly 30 pounds on Saturday.
Smith said there were some
I
reports of school kings on spoons,
but said that he expected most king
fish activity to come on slow-trolled
cigar minnows.
He said one outstanding catch for
the week was Linda Cable’s 50
pound amberjack, and said he heard
reports of a sailfish hooked near the
Knuckle buoy on Monday.
Closer inshore, live-baiters have
begun to do well with kings, Smith
said, reporting that he had four him
self - including a 25-pounder — on
Saturday at the Yaupon Reef.
Menhaden were available for cast
netters close to the beach west of the
Oak Island lighthouse, he said.
Smith also said that spoon-trollers
were taking Spanish mackerel, and
said that some large Spanish had
been landed by live-baiters, particu
larly along inshore tide lines.
Spots and large whiting were
available in the river, and trout were
hitting behind Bald Head Island.
At Long Beach Pier, Jim Ratcliff
reported that Spanish mackerel and
blues were abundant, particularly
early in the morning. One of his
anglers Lnded a nine-pound blue,
indicating that the inshore move
ment of these biggies - normal in
early May - may just be starting.
Ratcliff said that five kings weigh
ing up to 30 pounds were taken at
Long Beach over the weekend, and
said that meanwhile panfishermen
were pleased with the appearance of
big schools of whiting eager to hit
shrimp or bloodworms.
At Yaupon Pier, Billy West
reported a 14-pound king was
landed Tuesday morning, and said
Rocky Teal landed a 20-pounder
there on Sunday and lost a second
one.
West said blues were hitting lures,
and whiting and spots were taking
bloodworms and shrimp.
At Ocean Crest Pier, Carl Collins
reported ten kings and three cobia
over the weekend, and said that
spots taken there over the weekend
were the largest he’d seen in four
years.
Collins said that both blues and
Spanish were hitting gold-hook rigs,
and one of the mackerel had
weighed over six pounds.
Collins said that the gold-hook rig
used by his customers was a length
of leader with five gold hooks tied
off on droppers that are tied a sec
ond time so the hooks will spin
when the rig, ending in a two-ounce
sinker, is jigged.
t I;-A
Sunday will be the third running of the periodic Port Charlie’s Waterway
Regatta, featuring at least 15 local sailing craft and ... well, let’s face it,
anybody who wants to come and race. It’s always been a free-form sort of
deal.
The affair grew from fruitful minds which last year found themselves
gazing out the window of Port Charlie’s Marker 1 Lounge, thinking,
"Wouldn’t we really rather be racing?”
Thus there was a spring regatta as well as a late-fall one, with the cap
tain’s meeting and awards presentation at the Testaurant, plus a convenient
ly located starting line running between Intracoastal marker 1 and Cape
Fear buoy 14A. You can stand on the porch at Port Charlie’s and see prac
tically the whole thing.
Chuck Jones, skipper of the America who competed in the first two races,
told us last week that Mark Tallon is still race chairman and is responsible
for receiving entries and arranging handicaps. Interested sailors should
contact Tallon at 457-5642, or through Port Charlie’s restaurant, before
Friday. The race commences around 1 p.m. Sunday.
On Monday morning a most successful exercise in resource management
came to fruition when at least half a hundred clammers crowded into the
west channel of the Lockwood Folly River to harvest clams which had
been doomed by the dredging project in the river’s nearby main channel.
When the U. S. Corps of Engineers announced plans for dredging the
river to improve navigation and drainage the Division of Marine Fisheries
realized that hundreds of thousands of clams were going to be destroyed.
Better to have them harvested and turned into money and food, was the
thought, so in February a mechanical dredge came into the river, scooped
up some 300,000 clams from the channel and shifted them to a nearby area
of clean water. When the state shellfish sanitation people said it was okay,
the division set an opening date for taking the clams.
That was Monday.
At 9 a.m. there were 35 boats from as far away as Carolina Beach, many
with more than one clammer aboard, crowded into a 300-yard stretch
where the clams had been relaid. Every sort of hand-clamming was in evi
dence - tongers, long-rakers, short-rakers, pea rakers, trodders -- and as far
as we could tell there were enough clams for all, and then some.
The area is to remain open for clamming.
"Managing the Coastal Ocean for the 21st Century: North Carolina’s
Role" is the theme of a two-day conference beginning at 9 a.m. tomorrow
(Thursday) at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
On hand will be Jonathan Howes, secretary of the state Department of
Environment, Health and Natural Resources, as well as Robert W. Knecht
of the University of Delaware who will give the keynote talk on "Multiple
Use Management: Why is it important and how can it he achieved?"
The conference will conclude Friday with a panel discussion on future
management of the state’s coastal resources. Registration can be arranged
through the university at 256-3721.
1
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