Then it gets cloudy, they aren’t as warm and the bite slows along with their activity level. Some of the days with bright sunshine, specks and pups are active and aggressive and bite just like they did in the fall. However, with four days of sunshine each week and highs in the upper 50’s and 60’s, the water has warmed back to the mid 50’s and they are feeding regularly again. We had some cold weather in early December that dropped the water temps to below 50 degrees for a week or two and their activity slowed. The speck and pup action has been good all fall and into the winter. In 2 to 2 1/2 years those will be slot fish and in four years they should reach 30-32 inches and begin to spawn too. They were there spawning and as long as they stayed in the sound and river, there should be lots of smaller pups around next year. They were down a little in the spring and then didn’t care for the ultra hot summer weather, but came on strong later.Ģ018 was a very good year for old drum in the Pamlico Sound and Neuse River. Last winter’s freeze didn’t affect puppy drum as badly as it did specks, but it’s never good when weather conditions stun and kill fish. Knowing a 25 inch speck will weigh around 5 pounds, it’s easy to realize those were big trout. There were 31 and 33 inchers reported as released.
There were some 8 pounders scattered about and at least one 10 pounder. There were also some genuine gator trout in the mix. Every tackle shop with a speckled trout tournament was posting fish heavier than 7 pounds leading it. Biologists tell us specks begin to spawn around 12 inches so some of the ones born early in the spring may have gotten in a batch or two of eggs this year. They’ll be 14 to 18 inches next year and will be spawning.
The closure protected the first half of the spawn and it worked. Those 10 to 13 inch specks are the young of the year. Biologists tell us that specks begin to spawn in the spring once the water warms and continue to have batches of eggs into the fall. A big percentage of the specks being caught are undersize and must be released, but it’s good to see them. Here we are a year later and speckled trout fishing is excellent. There are qualifications to make this call and all of them were met, so Murphey had no choice but to do it. There were fishermen who supported it and fishermen who said it wasn’t needed, especially in their area. As always, this call met with mixed reviews. The first thing newly appointed DMF Director Steve Murphey had to do was issue a proclamation closing speckled trout season until June 15. Division of Marine Fisheries responded to numerous calls regarding the trout stuns and kills and found them stunned or dead and floating. There were speckled trout stuns and kills and in a few places it was bad enough there were also red drum kills. A year ago the temperature was dropping and many creeks, shallow bays and more were freezing.
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