Topsail Island - Pender, NC Inshore Report on 24th Oct, 2026 - 2

Here's another belated report that almost slipped through the cracks. Made up a 6hr trip with Mel and family on Labor Day weekend. There was a little too much chop to get offshore like we'd hoped, so we started out slow-dragging cigar minnows on some nearshore reefs, hoping for a hungry king. Sadly, we couldn't even find a shark out there. Someone started to get a little greenish, so I figured we'd get closer in to shore and speed things up a bit by trolling for Spanish. That usually seems to help, and it did. We were catching fish hot and heavy, but almost every one was about 11 to 11.5 inches... just undersize. Persistence pays, though, and we managed to find this handful of keepers so the family was well-stocked for fish tacos. Compare that to Saturday's trip, where out of 39 fish, we only had three shorts. Won't be long before the bigger fish start showing up, along with the false albacore (bonita).