Hello my name is Jason rosenfeld aka (NCSHARKER). For the last 10 years or so of my life I have been land-based shark fishing in the waters of North Carolina with great success. When I first started out in North Carolina one of the biggest problems I found was locations in the surf and where to place baits when shark fishing. In this post I will go over some of the spots I have found and the reasons why they are so productive. While I am going over these spots keep in mind the best places to find sharks in numbers are places where food must move, a place where the sharks don’t need to do much but wait and the food will go to them. Also keep in mind that the TSF handbook has a lot of great information in it but that NC waters are 100% different waters than that of the gulf, Florida, and Georgia. For example if you have read the TSF hand book (and you should) there is a lot of talk about fishing guts (the deep water between sand bars). Well if you fish NC waters you will see that we don’t have this. We only have 1 maybe 2 sand bars and they are very shallow. Therefore we must adapt to fishing different structures.
Finding and fishing a rip
The first thing you will need to do is locate the rip. This can be tricky to the untrained eye but with some practice its as easy as tying your shoes. Ok if you look at the surf for about 5 minutes or so you will get a feel for things and how the waves react to the bar and so on. Well take a drive or walk down the beach. What you are looking for is a choppy or discolored channel of water going against the waves. This is the rip.
Now that you have found your rip the next thing to think about is where to drop baits. The best way to fish a rip is with 3 to 5 rods. I will usually drop 2 short and 1 at the tail of the rip. Or 2 short 2 past the rip and 1 way out or way close what ever tickles ya.
5 rods 3 rods
I hope this helps you better understand fishing a rip. Just remember DON’T BE AFRAID TO DROP A BAIT SUPER CLOSE !!!!!. I have had some of my best fishing right in the white wash.
Shallow points and flats
Another great spot to get into some toothy action is just off the edges of shallow points and flats. The best flats or point to fish are ones that are dry at low tide. Think about this at high tide there is 2 or 3 feet of water on your point or flat. Small fish will go up on to this flat to feed and for protection from predators such as Sharks, Drum, Bluefish, ETC. Well as the tide falls these fish get more and more concentrated and before they can do anything about it they are forced to get off the point or flat. The sharks know this and will take full advantage of it. This is a great place to fish for the guy that doesn’t have the money for a yak but still wants to get into a big fish because you can walk out on the point and pretty much throw the baits where they need to be.
Ok to find a good point its simple just go to the surf at dead low tide and look than go back to the same place at high tide and drop some baits. What you are looking for is at low tide look at the sand between the water and the high tide line. The point will look like just that. A long point of sand jutting out in to the water.
Points can also be a great place to set up if the wind and current are really bad. If the current is coming down the beach from the right set up on the left side and if its from the left set up on the right. This is because on the leeward side of the point will be a slack water pocket and there will be a small rip at the tip of the point this will hold bait and therefore sharks.
I hope this helps some of you better understand the beaches of North Carolina. I will be posting more as I write them I will be going over inlets, shoals, and back bays in the next post.
Hope this helps! Thanx Jason.
