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Join us Saturday, March 19th at the Crystal Coast Civic Center for the Crystal Coast Chapter of CCA’s Annual Fundraising Banquet. Doors will open at 6pm. We have some exciting raffle prizes this year including sought after firearms and top-rated fishing gear to get you ready for spring fishing! You won’t want to miss the pinnacle of the evening, the always exhilarating Live Auction featuring local and destination guided hunting and fishing trips, exotic vacations to Belize, Costa Rica and Saint Thomas, beautifully hand-crafted mahogany and teak furniture, original artwork by local artists and much more. We will also be hosting a wine tasting this year along with tables dedicated to items exclusively for the ladies! Come have a ball and help us support the resource! Tickets are $65 per person or $100 a couple and include a mouth-watering catered meal, open bar and your annual CCA membership!

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Reflecting back on the past 2015/16 season, how did you do with speckled trout? Well if you didn’t do very well, join the club, it probably wasn’t your fault, because not only did you do poorly, but so most recreational anglers and ditto for the commercial catch as well. Commercial includes internal water strike-netters as well as the ocean stop-net (10/1-11/30 each year) “mullet” fishery as well. The commercial ocean mullet catch was excellent, but where were the “big” trout. I say “big” trout, because, if you were like me, our catches of 12 to almost 14-inch fish were epic up and down the beach, around the inlets and in the back sound tidal creeks.

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So that was the good news/bad news story of the fall migrating trout season. Lots of juvenile fish, but the most of the keepers were what I called measured keepers, that is you had to measure twice before you risked putting a fillet knife once to the trout, so the bad news was the lack of any fish from 18-icnhes and above.

So what are the possible reasons for the apparent lack of big speckled trout? According to recent research from trout tagging studies, natural mortality outstrips harvest, both commercial and recreational, mortality. Predominant avenues of natural mortality are predation (it’s dangerous to be a young trout), and environmental, particularly cold stun/kill events…“troutsicles”. Cold stun/kill events are not as rare as one might think, in fact we have had five such documented events since the winter of 2010, Polar Vortices included, and even devastating back-to-back events in the span of 13-months in January 2010 followed by a second kill in December, 2010 into January 2011. Even last winter there were documented kills in February 2015. We can readily document these events, but counting dead fish, to estimate the scope and breadth of the kill is difficult.

We know that since trout spawn early and often, and become reproductively mature after their first year when the fish have only reached 10 to 12-inches, their recovery from such natural disasters can be rapid. Thus the biological underpinning for recently increase of the minimum size limit to 14-inches. Just give the fish a chance and they will recover. Give fish a chance…

So the remarkable numbers of small spike trout can be attributed to a great recent spawn, but how about the keepers that you only measure because you want to and not because you need to? Of course one possibility is that the most recent trout kill in February 2015 was worse than thought. We may never know. The second are other weather related events, rain, rain in seemingly Biblical proportions. Okay no arks were built, but we in North Carolina did get tremendous quantities of rain in September and October, and South Carolina got 100-year flooding from the indirect effects of Hurricane Joaquin.

With this freshwater deluge, what did we see? We saw hardhead and finger mullet fleeing this freshwater influx, we saw a massive pulse of shrimp escaping the same, ditto for bay anchovies and behind this big southern flounder in the surf and at the local ocean fishing piers in numbers unseen in recent and even distant memories. So many that people were sight fishing flounder from Bogue Pier. And then there were the old drum bite from Bogue Banks to Topsail Island were dozens to hundreds were caught on some days. Even briefly, very briefly there were a few days when hardcore trout fishermen caught some 20-inchers. Then they disappeared. Bait was thick along the beach and we saw king mackerel, Spanish, blues, ladyfish too feeding on the shrimp and anchovies. There were shrimp popping at my ankles in the surf east of Bogue Pier and people were lining up along the bank with castnets netting many 10s of pounds of shrimp. Some old-timers have never seen this either.

The fresh water intrusion was so wide spread that our creeks that usually harbor big overwintering speckled trout were devoid of them. Even state Wildlife officials “shocking” Slocum Creek a great fall and winter trout hot-spot along the Neuse River, found no trout and not surprisingly, no salt, only fresh water. Interestingly, ocean shrimp trawls running along the beach in about 30-feet of water not only harvested great quantities of really big green-tail shrimp, but along with the usual expected by-catch, found large speckled trout, apparently feeding on the abundant shrimp, just off the beach. Fresh water is known to have adverse effects on many of our inshore species, forcing them to escape to more slat friendly waters.

So the most likely proximate causes from the lack of big trout may be recent killing cold stun events and an aversion to the lack of salt in the local creeks and rivers. We know that the trout rebound quickly from killing events and with the coast wide large number of juvenile fish seen, the prospects looks good for next year spotted trout. Trout growth curves indicate that these sub-14-inch fish will measure up into the mid to upper teens by next fall, with many in the nice eating 18-inch size and approaching the mid 20-inches in just another year or two of surviving predation, natural mortality and harvest. So long and thanks for all the trout, hoping next season with be a recovery year.

Finally, when all else fails, it’s time to blame El Niño!

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Surf at Bogue Pier ranged from high of 64-degrees (New Year’s Day) to a low of 47-degrees with an average of 54.0-degrees (blue diamonds). Bogue Sound had a high of 66-degrees and a low of 38-degrees with an average of 48.5-degrees (red squares). January temperatures started very warm on New Year’s Day and shortly plummeted by the end of the firs week. The warm temperatures extended the Surf (and Bogue Pier) Fishing season into mid-January, with puffers, sea mullet, bluefish and speckled trout.

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Blowfish, the bad the ugly and the tasty Dr. Bogus

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One of the first harbingers of spring for us fishermen along the Carolina Coast is the return of lowly puffer fish. Okay, they are not pretty, eat anything they can get their mouths on, average only a pound or less, don’t put up a good fight, or any fight for that matter, but they make up for all of that by providing some of the tastiest morsels that come out of the sea. Also known as blowfish, blow toad or swellfish and technically the northern puffer or scientifically Spheroides maculates, they return to us in the late winter or early spring, when we need them the most to recover us from the long winter doldrums. I recently ventured out onto the recently opened Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier in Emerald Isle, to hunt down some “puffer experts” to get the skinny on blowfish.

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It was the first day of spring and as luck would have it, I came across the only two hardy anglers there that day fishing for none other than the puffers, so I sat and talked to Bob Young (Hubert) and Bob Ludwig (Cape Carteret), both Yankees originally from the cold white north of New York City, both grizzled puffer fishermen from long ago and far away.

“They are the best eating fish you can catch,” volunteered Ludwig, “I’ve been catching them since 1955, up in Captree and in Center Moriches, right on Long Island.”

Not to be outdone, Young interrupted, “oh, I been catching them since I was about eight, nine-years old, and that’s quite many years back. My dad and me used to go out to Sheepshead Bay, right out there in Long Island Sound. We used to fish them all the time,” confirmed Young.

We know that they are an early spring fish, but how about the rest of the year. “Yes, you have a winter season too,” said Young, “in the wintertime or spring in the colder seasons, you catch them in closer to the beach, but during the summertime you catch them out in the deeper water.”

Ludwig noted that he was in puffer heaven late last fall. “I caught about 150 in three days right here on the pier in the cold, last December, exclaimed Ludwig.” By the way, the puffers freeze very well too, so that was a 150-tasty morsels for the winter.

Gear and bait are pretty straight-forward agreed Young and Ludwig. Just a simple hi-lo two hook rig and a three or four ounce sinker will do the trick. The only real trick on the gear is to use a long shank hook, as Ludwig explained, “I use a long shank No. 4 hook because it goes deep in their mouth and you can hook them better. I use a long shank for that reason, otherwise they will just chop it right off.”

Young agreed, “If you have a short-shank hook, they’ll cut your line right in half, and you won’t come back with a fish. You’ll come back with just an empty line. Use a long shank hook and you’ll come with more fish,” said Young.

Neither is the bait exotic. “I like shrimp like everybody else,” said Young, “you can also use this artificial bloodworms (Fishbites, Bag o’ Worms), they’ll work just as well. They are a bottom feeding fish and they will eat anything you throw at them, they’ll eat squid, shrimp or whatever, anything.”

Ludwig agreed, “they will bite just about anything, even artificials, said Ludwig, they’ll eat anything, the blowfish. They’ll tear up just about anything.” Reminding me that I even landed one jigging a green grub bait last fall, intended for a speckled trout.

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The blowfish are willingest of victims, one of the least fussy eaters, the gear is not rocket science, but this is where it gets interesting…cleaning the beast.

“It’s a tough, job,” sighed Ludwig, “they will take the skin right off your hands. I always wear a pair of gloves when I clean them. Their skin is about 10-times rougher than sandpaper!”

Young agreed, “Really, their skin is rough,” said young “you got to use gloves and good sharp knives. The easiest way to clean them that I found, and I’ve been fishing them for a long time and cleaning them, is to cut them (from the top) right behind the gills, and cut them right down to the bottom skin and then turn your knife away from you and run the knife right down the fish and the skin will peel right off.”

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“You just rotate your knife as you pull it to the back,” explained Young, “while holding the head, and the skin comes right off and you end up with what we call a chicken leg. It looks just like a chicken leg, all nice and clean.”

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Recently the desirability of the delectable puffer is spreading, and with the toxicity myth our northern puffer dissipating has lead to a dramatic change in attitude to the once feared puffer.

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“When I first came down here, which was six-years ago,” explained Young, “you used to be able to find them (discarded) all over the pier. People didn’t want them, they were scared of them, and they read all these newspapers from Florida that said that they were poisonous. They really aren’t poisonous. These are the northern puffer fish that come down this way and are very good eating. As far as I’m concerned, they are one of the better eating fish.”

Ludwig chimed in, “now when you just get them out of the water, people want them. Now they are asking if you want them, even before you get them off the hook!”

Now for the culinary. Both Young, and Ludwig and other blowfish coinsures confirm the great taste of the northern puffer fish. Chicken of the sea, sea squab are designed to hide the “puffer” heritage of the fish, but the taste is tops and the rule is the KISS proverb, “keep is simple stupid”, and simplicity is the best preparation.

Some just sauté in butter, I like to lightly coat in flour and sauté, in butter with a little lemon juice…simple. Young’s wife Alice keeps it simple too. According to Young, ‘my wife dips them in an egg-wash then coats them in some Italian flavored breadcrumbs and then browns them in butter and olive oil. When we put them out for guests with some other fish and don’t tell anyone what they are, they are always the first to disappear,” smiled Young, thinking of his next meal.

Oh the puffing, it’s for protection, they can suck in water and puff up to a large spheroid when threatened by a potential predators. On the pier they suck in air, I guess in response to human predators. “If you bring one up and you tickle its belly,” explains Young, “or rub its belly, it will blow-up like a basketball. As a matter of fact, it you drop it on the deck, it will bounce.”

As far as North Carolina regulations, unlike most fish, it’s quite easy; there are no size or bag limits.

And just to clarify the toxicity of puffer fish, according to US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition (FDA-CFSAN, http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap39.html) poisonings from the puffer toxin, a.k.a. tetrodotoxin, have been almost exclusively associated with the consumption of puffer fish from waters of the Indo-Pacific ocean regions, there have been no confirmed cases of poisoning from the Atlantic puffer fish. Other remote species of the family Tetradontidae which includes many species of puffers that are notably toxic, such as the Japanese torafugu (fugu rubripes), should be avoided (see article link below).

https://tableagent.com/article/fugu-a-mortiferous-morsel-sure-to-make-your-mouth-tingle/

Locally, there is one puffer family that should also avoided, it is the burrfish. “When fishing for puffers,” Young said, “about one of every ten will be a burrfish. You can tell them apart, they have a square nose, that’s how you recognize them, more square than oblong like the puffer. They also have spines, they’re really spiny. The thing is to watch out, and don’t go playing with them or eat them, they are not a thing you want to eat,” said Young.

Ludwig echoed the sentiment, “they really have sharp thorns on them,” said Ludwig, “I’ve gotten stuck by them, now I use pliers to get the hook out of them. I use a rag and pliers.”

So now is the time for tasty treats, chicken of the sea is on the menu, but if you come down to Bogue Pier looking for puffers, these days you’ll have catch your own, and don’t ask Bob Young or Bob Ludwig if they want to keep theirs, you already know the answer!

Posted by & filed under Fishing, Recipes category.

WINE RECOMMENDATION
Sparkling wines go well with a wide variety
of dishes. For an unexpected treat with this exotic
curry, serve a good-quality bubbly from California.
SERVES 4

1/4 cup cooking oil
2 onions, chopped fine
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/8 teaspoon turmeric

1. In a large frying pan, heat the oil over
moderately high heat. Add the onions and cook,
stirring frequently, until golden, about 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for
2 minutes.
2. Add the coriander, cumin, cinnamon,
cayenne, and turmeric and cook, stirring, for 30
seconds. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring, for
1 minute. Add the coconut milk, and salt
and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat and cook
at a low boil, stirring frequently, until thickened,
5 to 10 minutes.
3. Add the shrimp to the pan. Reduce the
heat to low and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shrimp are just done, 3 to 5min. Remove from heat, stir in cilantro and serve with lime wedges.

1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 ½ pounds large shrimp shelled
¾ cup chopped cilantro
Lime wedges, for servingIMG_1523

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Surf at Bogue Pier ranged from high of 65-degrees to a low of 58-degrees with an average of 62.7-degrees (blue diamonds). Bogue Sound had a high of 69-degrees and a low of 50-degrees with an average of 61.4-degrees (red squares). December saw an unusual increase in surf temps for this relatively mild December. Average temperature for 2015 was 67.4-degrees, slightly above the normal of 66.8. Interestingly we had a very cold Jan/Feb/Mar for 2015, but reached 80-degrees in the surf by the end of May and continued warmer than usual through the end of the year. Very strange year indeed.

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Surf at Bogue Pier ranged from high of 72-degrees to a low of 61-degrees with an average of 66.5-degrees (blue diamonds). Bogue Sound had a high of 74-degrees and a low of 53-degrees with an average of 63.4-degrees (red squares). November saw the typical drop in surf temps (-0.36 degrees/day) especially during the one real cold spell we had late in the month, but is still above normal rising back into the 60s before the end of the month.

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NCDMF Regs & Fishing Tourney  (Citation) Criteria. These can be moving targets so the Regs are as of August 2015. This includes finfish, shellfish and crabs etc.The fishing tourney has do with citations given for big fish, There are catch, catch and release and release only categories

http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/mf/recreational-fishing-size-and-bag-limits

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Emerald Isle Water Temperatures for October 2015

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Surf at Bogue Pier ranged from high of 79-degrees to a low of 67-degrees with an average of 72.7-degrees (blue diamonds). Bogue Sound had a high of 79-degrees and a low of 57-degrees with an average of 69.4-degrees (red squares). October saw the typical drop in temps especially during the one real cold spell we had, but is still a bit above normal.

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We are all aware of the continuing debate concerning large mesh gill nets and southern flounder fishery in our state. Recently WRAL TV in Raleigh ran a documentary on this and the use of inshore shrimp trawls. They gave a fair presentation from the commercial side, recreational side and regulatory side of the southern (internal) founder fishery gill-nets and Pamlico Sound shrimp trawls. I recommend that you check out the documentary and inform yourself on the many views of these fisheries. The documentary is: Net Effect: The fight over flounder, http://www.wral.com/net-effect-the-fight-over-flounder-/15019970. Check it out.