Topsail Island Variety Pt.2

Welcome back to a blog series I have titled Topsail Island Variety. My name is Captain Ozzy and I am a full time fishing guide and owner of Marker23 Guide Service , I am very excited to discuss the next part in this series, and that is the late spring through summer time. April through August is one my most favorite times to fish and guide. After chasing schools all winter and early spring it can be a nice change of pace when the fish bust up from their winter time routines. As far as redfish go, they can be found in all sorts of places. Red Drum are known for being shallow water fish and hold true to that in the summer time. When targeting redfish this time of year in can be very visual, redfish will do what is known as belly crawling. this happens when a redfish in such shallow water that the fishes back will sick out of the water. These fish are typically aggressive and willing to eat, and can be a blast on spinning tackle and fly. Another redfish phenomenon that occurs in the summer is flood tide tailing fish. this occurs when the tide is unusually high (normally during the full and new moon) this causes certain grass flats to flood or hold more water than normal. Thus causing the redfish to swim onto these flats in search of crabs and other bait that isn’t assessable at lower tides. When in pursuit of these flood tide redfish they will make themselves known by tailing, they do this because as they feed on the flat they use there nose to root around the mud causing their tails to stick completely out of the water. These 2 reasons make redfish during late spring and early summer a lot of fun to target, however the Speckle trout fishing is also heating up the same time of year. In the spring time large female Speckled Trout can be found on shallow water grass flats. These trout are either in their spawning behavior or just coming out of their spawning behavior. Regardless there are plenty of Large Speckled Trout hungry for a top water plug on shallow water grass flats on the late spring and early summer. Along with Speckled Trout and Redfish, there are many species that become available this time of year as well. Such as Sheepshead, Black Drum, Flounder, Tarpon, Spanish, and Jacks. All of these fish can be targeted on fly and light tackle and make up all the reasons I love fishing in the summer months.