Yesterday was the beginning of the Labor Day holiday, but from the lack of boat traffic in the morning, it was more like a Tuesday or Wednesday.

Maritime weather can be a real challenge to figure out.  Sometimes the only way to really know is get out on the water.  That is what we did yesterday.  One of my fishing buddies, Brian, and I headed down the White Oak to Swansboro about ten AM.

The blue skies were peeking through the clouds here and there on our way down the White Oak to Swansboro.  We had to stop in Swansboro Harbor because bluefish were breaking the surface all over the place.

We grabbed our shiny things rods and managed to catch enough to determine that these were really small bluefish under ten inches.  After figuring that out we headed on out to Bogue Inlet.

We did not quite make it out into the ocean before we noticed more bluefish breaking the surface.  These were larger ones.  We managed to drift through them a few times, but they would not take our Gotcha or shinny spoon which is pretty unusual for bluefish who will usually attack anything that remotely resembles food.  We actually had a school swim right under the boat.  We could see them in the water.  They were absolutely beautiful bluefish, some as big as two feet.

We soon got back on track since we had come to explore the Inlet in preparation for fishing next week. We did not really have time to chase the bluefish. 

As to figuring out the changes since Bill, it did not take us long to determine that the low water beach that runs from the opposite side of the Inlet from the Point down towards Hammock Beach has been extended and the cuts that were in it are pretty much gone.

On the east end of that beach there is a spit of underwater sand that extends parallel to the Inlet.  It looks like a great place to fish, but you have to go out the Inlet to get around it and come back up the beach and then beach your boat.

After that we went back and checked out the Coast Guard channel.  It seemed fine.  There were a few boats fishing up in there near the station.  That's also where I snapped the picture of the Point vehicle access.  If you check out my post, The Ramp to Nowhere, you can see land side photos of the same area.

After coming back down the Coast Guard channel, we headed home at full speed, only slowing for the no wake zone by the Wildlife Resources ramp and Swansboro Harbor.

It only took about fifteen minutes.  Brian had some work to do in the afternoon, and I had promised to take some friends bottom fishing.  I managed to inhale a sandwich and add some new sunblock before my guests arrived.

I had been able to relax in the morning and take pictures while Brian was captain.  In the afternoon, I had to put the camera away and be captain.

Gail, the wife of my fishing buddy Dean, was hoping to catch her first fish of this century.  She had gotten a new rod at Walmart and a fishing license to go with it.  Dean had her ready to fish.  We headed to Swansboro once again, but under skies that had turned cloudy.  We explored one of our favorite spots, but it had been reconfigured a little so we ended up choosing a spot where one of the back channels comes back into the Intracoastal.

Gail was the first one with her line in the water since Dean was helping her get rigged.  I had to rig my bottom fishing outfit since I had been working on my reel the night before.  Gail managed to catch here first croaker before Dean and I even got our lines into the water.

As soon as I got my line in the water, I also hooked a croaker.  It took a while for Dean to catch his first fish while Gail and I were reeling them into the boat.  Once he got started, Dean went through a streak of catching a fish a cast.  He even caught a puffer.  We probably caught twenty to twenty-five croakers and pigfish before we decided that we should head back to Bluewater Cove.  We were throwing back everything that we caught so we did not have to worry about cleaning fish.

We had a smooth ride back up the White Oak and docked around 4 PM.  I was ready to relax a little after all the fun, but Glenda, my non-fshing wife, needed to smell some salt air, so we decided to head over to Chowdaheads on the Island for some fish tacos.  The tacos were great.

After that we chased the sunset for a while, taking pictures from the first bridge in Swansboro and at Dudley's Marina.  One of the pictures from Dudley's ended up being featured on Marvin Daughtery's WITN Weather Forecast at 11 PM.

It was a nice way to end the day, and a much better way to start the day than the pop-pop sound of shotguns we are hearing from Silver Creek Golf Course as some hunters clear out the population of Canadian geese.