The morning began at full throttle. Launching out of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, our party of six split across two inshore skiffs, we beelined straight toward a rock jetty. For a terrifying minute, it appeared the captains were steering us directly into a collision—Justin locked eyes with the captain to see if he was cursed with a death wish. At the last moment we veered to the left narrowly avoiding the jetty, a sigh of relief for all of us on this early morning. It was an adrenaline-pumping welcome to Cape Fear waters.
While the second boat focused on catching enough to feed an entire 12 man golf party—slamming keeper red drum, black drum, sheepshead and flounder on live crab and mullet—my boat was locked in on a different mission. Joining me were Jason and Andrew, two seasoned anglers itching to bend a rod again after a long dry spell. Our captain was an intense, hyper-focused guide who lived for sight-casting redfish on the shallow flats.
We paused in a marsh creek for a quick briefing, but mid-sentence, the captain suddenly slammed the throttle and shot the boat 200 yards up the bank. He’d spotted a school of fish and wasn't about to let another boat beat us to the target. He quickly handed us our weapons: a topwater walk-the-dog plug for me, a soft plastic on a jighead for Andrew, and a live mullet for Jason.
The tension was suffocating. We needed long, silent, surgical casts. Fueled by excitement, Jason fired off a cast before the captain gave the signal, tangling his line in the console rod holders. I stepped up for my shot and completely blew the placement. It was a cold, awkward start with a guide who expected perfection. Fortunately, the school didn't spook. On our second attempt, both Jason and I hooked up simultaneously, leaving Andrew on deck cheering us on.
After thirty minutes of suffocating, windless marsh heat, we made a move out through the inlet in search of a breeze and fast action. Tying on heavy metal spoons, we began burning retrieves for pelagics. The action started slow, and we shifted gears to running and gunning to find something larger. Covering miles of shoreline we saw few marks even on the side scan, and it was becoming clear Jason was getting impatient. "Can we go back to catching the real fish" he poked as we were trying to catch bait.
This was the right decision, as the tide came in we moved to the intersection of the north and east-facing shorelines of North Carolina. Below the surface was a labyrinth of hills and troughs channeling currents in every direction. Spanish mackerel, bluefish, and aggressive jack crevalle were chasing down our lures on every throw—delivering the non-stop action and hard strikes every angler craves.
To top off an already unforgettable day, a school of massive sharks began cruising the rips. We managed to hook into a powerful blacktip shark, sending our gear into overdrive as it put on a clinic of lightning-fast directional shifts, raw power, and corkscrewing aerial jumps.
At lunch afterwards we all recounted the initial run out from the boat launch. Everyone admitted they’d quietly braced for impact against the rocks. We had one of the best days of fishing in our lives, but the headline that will survive the test of time isn’t the drum or the blacktips; it’s the five terrifying seconds we all believed we were going down at full throttle.