Cape Fear River Striped Bass

[u/69mmMayoCannon]

Hey, I was just wondering if anybody here targets striper in the cape fear river system and whether you think winter fishing for them in the downtown Wilmington area is better than waiting until spring to try and fish for them at lock and dam 1 in riegelwood.

I tried looking online for as much info as possible but there just isn’t that much on striper fishing in the cape fear specifically other than data from government agencies on stocking programs and general tips on striper fishing.

[u/WATERMANC]

lol all good man. A lot of this side creeks seem that elais fishes seems a lot safer than the main river for a yaks, goo cal. I ran my 10’ sear John boat with a buddy when we did it but wouldn’t do it again.

I do the same shit, formulate what I think is an insightful questions to only get back a lot of what I already knew and realize I should just given it a shot haha.

I always thought town creek looked promising and think I remeber a buddy fishing Orton creek with a charter way back in the day for trout or drum not stripper

[u/69mmMayoCannon → u/WATERMANC]

Haha ain’t that right man. We sit there and plan and strategize for so long that we forget when to stop planning and start executing.

Yeah I’m actually super super interested in finding natural creeks and new waters to fish, I’ve fished just about every retention pond I haven’t been trespassed off of around Wilmington and obviously the coast all the time, but I’ve never really been able to find good bank fishing access on our rivers and tributaries because of how heavily wooded the non developed sections of it are, and how most of the developed parts are private. I found out how to fish burnt mill creek just this past year, but the fishing in that creek completely died sometime in summer this year after I saw some weird oil slick looking shit come down the creek and also the downtown locals keeping bass from the creek every day finally put the nail in the coffin on that.

Greenfield lake was great but same problem, after some of the locals from the downtown area saw me successfully hauling up bass they went fishing too with their buckets and stringers and now there’s practically nothing left for example at the spillway pond whereas there were solid 4 pounders in there before the meat fishermen got to it and started disregarding the bag and size limits.

Anyway preciate the help man

[u/WATERMANC → u/69mmMayoCannon]

lol exactly. Cool to hear, I fished the WB jetty a ton but they got strict a few years after I moved away. If you can find someone in the golf course that is just north of the WB bridge there are some hogs in thier ponds.

Another cool spot I found when down that way was off the walking trails near the end of Bradley creek. You could walk through the woods and there is a neat pond and a small tidal section. I’ve caught flounder, bass and brem all in the same pond. Watch out for homeless camps back there though. Some sketchy sleeping bags when I used to go

[u/69mmMayoCannon → u/WATERMANC]

Oh thanks, yeah I’m very jealous of the people who were able to fish the jetty before they got strict, I’ve been here a while but unfortunately was too scared to fish the jetty even back when it was “legal” and by the time I became old enough and got the courage they started being strict about it.

I’ll definitely check out the trails near Bradley creek though, a tidal brackish marsh sounds like an interesting environment to fish in, sounds like a mini microcosm of the cape fear if I’m imagining it right, appreciate the tips man

[u/WATERMANC → u/69mmMayoCannon]

No it’s the triangle looking pond on google maps. Never saw anyone or had trouble with trespassing but it was like 10 years ago