[gentle orchestral fanfare] [ocean waves] - Everything's got to come together just perfect.

[ocean waves] - [Joe] Spaniard, look at him spottin' in the surf.

[laughs] - [Announcer] The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer] Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine.

ncwildlife.org/winc.

- [Male Announcer] And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We've been fishing since 2003.

Come see the crew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and we can hook you up for all your fishing needs.

[light instrumental music] ♪ - Hello and welcome to the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

Well, today we're going to be fishing for some Spanish, but we're going to be doing it in a unique way, Joe.

- Well, it really is.

We're going to be fishing actually off the beach for Spanish.

Everybody that fishes Spanish every year thinks about fishing off a boat, trolling or casting if you get into a school of fish, or off the end of a pier.

That's the favorite ways or more popular ways of catching them, but today we're going to take you and show you something a little different, fishing Beaufort Inlet the south end of Shackleford Banks.

This was actually a week before Hurricane Irene came in and so we knew that was the possibility of her coming up and so we got this show in before that happened.

But just a unique way of catching Spanish you really don't think about it, but because of the way the island butts up to the inlet and water drops off it's just a natural place for it and you'll see we had a lot of fun.

- Now Joe you don't have to do anything special that we'll talk about in Gear Time to fish like this.

- Actually, no, this was late summer.

The guys were in shorts, I mean you don't need waders.

This time of year when the guys like to fish for them on the beach it's warm so you don't need any special foot gear and the lures are pretty standard Spanish mackerel lures.

They had to work with the sizing the fish were real picky that morning, you'll see the inlet was full of small bait fish and so you have to downsize your lures to meet what the fish are feeding on.

That's what they did and they caught fish.

- And speaking of feeding, Donna has got a recipe for us.

It's a salad today.

- Right, it's a seafood salad which is, we're on the coast today so it goes right with what we're doing today.

- Well, we've got a busy day.

Thanks for joining us on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- Well this is mighty pretty Chuck.

I can see Spanish jumping from here.

- We've got fish jumping down there.

We're sitting here at the mouth of Beaufort Inlet and basically three days away from what might be Hurricane Irene's landfall and we're going to be leaving a perfectly good boot to put our feet in the sand and catch some Spanish Mackerel this morning, buddy, so we need to get out there and get that tide before it goes slack, 'cause they are jumping already.

- It was prime time to catch a nice Spanish.

I think we probably ought to secure this boat a little bit better before we get out of there.

Don't you?

- We're going to get an anchor put out and then we're going to walk right down the beach and be in some fish, partner.

- [Kurt] Well let's do that 'cause I am ready.

- [Chuck] Let's go.

- What caliber fish you expect to be catching out here?

- Kurt, we're going to see fish anywhere from 14, 15 inches up to five or six pounds and they could literally be right at your feet.

We got some busting right here right off the beach right now.

- [Kurt] That's a pretty place just a flat with a pure drop off of it.

It's gorgeous, a big riff right here on the point.

- [Chuck] We got sand flats going out the inlet.

- [Kurt] It's going to be a gorgeous morning right here before the hurricane.

- Kurt they're out there waiting on you, buddy.

- [Kurt] I see 'em.

They like this chartreuse.

They hit that chartreuse early.

[ocean waves] - [Chuck] Come on, Spanish.

- [Kurt] You generally just use a faster treeve.

Just fast as you can rip it, man.

There he is right there.

- All right, Kurt!

Welcome to the beach [laughs].

Welcome to the beach, buddy.

You might be casting too far [laughs].

- [Kurt] Yeah, he wasn't very far out there.

[waves crashing] - [Chuck] Well, he's a blue fish.

Just a blue.

Woo!

You need the dehooker?

- [Kurt] Nah, I'll get him.

- [Chuck] All right, buddy.

Hooked up, Kurt.

Look at this.

Little drag going.

Good gracious, buddy.

- [Kurt] He's taking it on.

[laughs] look at this.

[fishing line whirs] It's all coming back to me now.

- [Kurt] Just a quick, oh yeah really, you're used to that casting aren't you?

[fishing line whirs] Is he taking some drag?

- [Chuck] He did, he did.

I wanted to see this guy.

- [Kurt] You just using a faster treeve?

- Faster treeve soon as it hits the water.

[seagulls chirping] - [Kurt] You gonna just walk him up behind ya?

- [Chuck] I'm going to come right to the beach with him, with this wave I hope.

Look at here.

Spaniard.

[wave crashing] - [Kurt] Whoa, me.

I love that black dorsal fin on him.

That's where you got him, hadn't you?

- He came by there and made a quick little pop at it and we ate him up, buddy.

Got to stay away from those teeth.

- I like that chartreuse.

- [Kurt] Isn't that pretty how he's got that black dorsal right there?

You can always tell them from a king by looking at that dorsal right there.

That's why he pulled so good but he swiped at it they're still busting out there in the surf, buddy.

- I'm going to let him go - I bet he was a good fight hook to the top of the head like that.

- Let's get this dehooker and let him go and we'll catch us another one, partner.

[wave crashes] Oh, me.

- Well, Chuck you spend a lot of time looking for fish sometimes when you're fishing.

We're looking at 'em right now but we need to find exactly what they want to bite, don't we?

- They are on such small bait, Kurt, we've been catching them on fly rods you can see the bait coming out of the water.

We are literally using, I mean in order to cast something we've got to go a little bit bigger.

We're using the smallest little metal jigs that we can and we're still, you know, gettin' bit, but we just can't get 'em to hold on.

But the fish are definitely here.

- [Kurt] Lookin' right at 'em.

And they're well within range maybe we're casting too far.

- [Chuck] Kurt, there he is.

We finally got one on.

- I got ya.

Same bait though, huh?

- [Chuck] Same bait I let it sink down for about maybe five seconds.

[fishing line whirs] - [Kurt] You taking a run for it?

- [Chuck] He took a little drag when he first popped it, but we'll see what we can do.

- [Kurt] My Spanish, look at him in the waves.

I hooked up the same time, let it sink just like you said.

- All right.

Just let it get down a little bit and we doubled up.

- [Chuck] Look at that fish.

Look at that Spanish.

[wave crashing] Now that's pretty.

That's the Spanish right there, buddy.

- [Kurt] That's pretty.

- [Chuck] I believe I'd like to take him to blackjack.

- [Kurt] Well if you wanted to put something up there in the cooler we'll do it, buddy.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Look at that.

What have you got?

Let's see.

- My surf fishing experience is very limited, but I love seeing them come up on this.

- [Chuck] They are right there in the wash. - [Kurt] Yeah, we're seeing them right there in that wave.

- [Chuck] Look at here, look at here.

Ladyfish.

- Well that was a good fighting fish.

- Ladyfish.

- You know, I don't know if that's my first ladyfish or not.

- Outstanding catch, partner.

- [Kurt] Well, Chuck.

- [Chuck] That's a gorgeous ladyfish.

I'd love to have those on the fly.

So that's your first one.

- [Kurt] I believe it is unless I've caught some little bitty ones before.

- Well they get a bite as long as your arms so we'll get that up.

That Spanish will head on the grill I'll put him over here for blackjack.

- That was a good fightin' little fish here today.

- Yes sir, they are tough.

They are tough.

And busting right there in the water.

- Must be in there feeding together.

That looks a lot like a bonefish does, doesn't it?

- Look at the minnows.

That's what they flew up right there so that's what we're competing with.

Just millions of them.

- Let me get this one back in the water.

- [Chuck] I'm going to put this one up here by the cooler.

[fish splashes] - Doubled up on something.

[wave crashes] - I got one of your little jacks, buddy.

Got a little more fight to this fish here.

- [Chuck] It's a Spanish.

- He isn't taking that run like I'm looking for.

Nah, little jack again.

- [Chuck] That's bluefish.

- [Kurt] Absolutely a variety of species here.

- [Chuck] Kurt make sure you cast kind of down into the waves instead of out straight, maybe.

[soft music] - Kurt we just had a little bit of slack tide.

We've just gotten, maybe, a touch of incoming now.

We've got these fish coming right back up to our feet so I think if we get out there we can finish up what we started this morning on that outgoing tide.

- I got ya', I can tell that the fish are moving in as it got a little later with that tide this morning.

They moved further out to the inlet, but they coming back now they within casting range or getting close to it.

- As that tide comes in they're gonna acclimate close to that beach 'cause that's where all those minnows are going to try to get away from them.

So let's go catch one, buddy.

- It's almost too much bait, isn't it?

- [laughs] just about.

[waves crashing] - Little Spanish here.

- [Chuck] Spaniard!

Hooked up, we got a devil.

Gotta go, buddy.

[wave crashes] - [Chuck] I think I see a black dorsal.

Oh, a little drag, Kurt.

- [Kurt] I'll tell you one thing about a Spanish he's all meat, isn't he?

- This might be a ladyfish.

Nope, little Spanish.

I'll tell you what, all the fishing I was doing this morning I was using pretty much a straight retrieve.

Come on, fish.

- [Kurt] Is he taking some drag?

- He did just a hair but I think he's set so light, Kurt.

- [Kurt] Gotta be set doing light like this or you're liable to hook up a five or six pounder.

- Spanish, I think I've got him in the back of the head.

Uh oh, Kurt you hooked up.

- [Kurt] That's big, buddy.

You hook 'em in the head, the tail, everywhere.

- Too bad we can't pick the ones we want, isn't it?

- [Chuck] Gosh knows if we could create them five pounders in here we'd be somebody.

- [Kurt] This is a pretty fish, now.

- [Chuck] They don't ever give up coming after once they commit.

- That's right.

- [Chuck] Get him, buddy.

- I can feel him down there swimming.

He going to swim around the side there.

Another one of them jacks I think.

- [Chuck] Little jack.

[wave crashes] - How far up in the water column do you think these fish are?

- [Chuck] They eat from the bottom to the top, but that little black dot right there on his dorsal and his tail, - Right here?

that tail should have some Atlantic bumper.

Basically just a little miniature jack crevalle.

- I think the best time to come out here and catch a Spanish like this is, and I'm talking time of year, time of day, tide, wind.

- It's hard to do late summer and early fall.

The wind I don't think it's got as big a, you know as long as it's not gale force or something, but we've gotta have moving water.

We sat down for about an hour ago and had a sandwich and a pack of Nabs and waited for just a little bit of water movement, then come out here and we've been doubled up pretty much since we got down here.

- You talking about current coming around.

- In or out, doesn't make any difference.

We're sitting on the point of the inlet so we've got a rip or a point break both ways in and out.

- We timed it so we could get the tide both ways with a break in between too.

- We did, we had about an hour and a half break in between and that's about the way she worked out.

The fish are right there waiting for you right between us and that first boat.

- Had some pretty ones too, haven't we?

- If the bigger ones would come in here like the little ones we'll have it made in a minute.

- If they eat.

- A lot to be said for the way you're talking about color differentiating for the bait, but also with that erratic movement coming and falling, coming and falling looks a little different.

- Everything's got to come together just perfect.

- [Kurt] Spaniard, look at him spotting in the surf.

- [Chuck] Pretty one, Kurt.

- Look at the difference in the bait, look at the bait here that we're using and this bait.

That oughta catch him, isn't it?

- That's almost identical.

Almost identical.

- Hook up Kurt, right there, buddy.

- [Kurt] What's it feel like?

No telling is it.

- It ain't no telling here we have caught everything, ladyfish, houndfish, American bumpers and we caught bar jacks - Bar jacks.

Blues.

- [Chuck] This feels like a little Spanish.

- [Kurt] I'm looking for one that goes the other way like some of the nice Spanish we've been seeing.

- [Chuck] Spanish, yeah.

I love that black fin on him.

That is something man.

- [Kurt] Just a pretty fish.

- [Chuck] That is something and I've seen some broad ones out there.

I get this dehooker 'cause I love my fingers [laughs].

[wave crashes] - Well, it looks like you had fun out there.

- We really did and actually we missed some of the best tide because you see it was first light the sun just came up and we think the fish were actually feeding at night before we could actually film it.

So we didn't get some of the better action, I think, and it kind of started dwindling off.

As you can see we caught a variety of fish, not only Spanish but ladyfish and bluefish 'cause everything else is mixed in that inlet starts moving either way and there's food there.

These big predators come in and so we were targeting Spanish which we caught that day but you can expect a variety of fish.

- Right, and you've gotta be ready for it.

So, let's find out more let's go to Gear Time.

[cheery guitar music] - Well, Chuck that was a lot of fun.

- Tell you Kurt, it was great to get you down here.

We're down here at Harkers Island headed out to Beaufort Inlet.

We were really trying to catch Spanish in the sand right before Hurricane Irene comes up the coast and we had absolutely amazing conditions.

It looked like a African migration out there.

We had bait, we had fish, we had everything you needed.

- Amazing, and we did catch a fair amount of Spanish.

- We did, we caught nice Spanish.

We didn't catch anything as nice as we saw jumping out of the water and cutting under our feet.

- [Kurt] Saw hundreds of nice class Spanish jumping, but the amount of bait and predator fish that we saw was just amazing you could just see them in the water all around our feet, just billions of minnows and houndfish and blues and everything just cutting through them.

It was just a sight to see if we hadn't even had a fish.

- Well we knew we were going to have about two hours this morning on the outgoing tide.

We knew we were going to have about an hour of slack in there so we came back to the boat and had a sandwich and a pack of Nabs and a Gatorade and after that we went back and when that tide started moving it was come on let's go again.

- It sure did and they seemed to like the smallest baits that we were throwing - The smaller baits you could throw, They went through a lot of them today, but the smallest you could do about the size of your little finger.

Exactly what you've got there is about the size that they were eating and it sounds like size was very, very important, but also once we got some cloud cover this afternoon it was very important to have some color.

The shiny stainless looking silver didn't work as good as the pink and whites and the green and whites and the chartreuse and whites.

- This bait looked exactly like a glass minnow.

At one point we laid them side by side and it looked exactly like it, too much so.

I don't think they just could discriminate the difference.

So if you had pink on there or jigged this and made it right, it worked.

The chartreuse was good and I think the bait that was best was this jig right here, had a single hook on it in chartreuse but we lost all those.

- It's very easy for them to get them in the mouth and once they're inside the mouth all they got to do is close the mouth and it's gone.

But we went out with some seven and a half, six and a half foot rods with very light line.

We've gotten out there, I Used spinning all morning long.

You used a pretty little Calcutta 200 I guess.

- [Kurt] I think it's a 150.

- [Chuck] Or 150.

- 10, 12 pound test line but we had a leader, mine about six feet long and you running around with about 18 inches of 30 or 40 pound test fluorocarbon.

Those Spanish are slick fish.

He's not going to bite any hogwire.

He's got very keen eyesight and if you don't use straight fluorocarbon he will not bite it regardless of the size of the bait.

- Well, we got bit off a lot but I think we got a lot more bites and like I said we caught everything.

We caught American bumpers which are small jacks.

We caught bar jacks, we caught ladyfish, we had a houndfish on, we caught Spanish, obviously, and bluefish and if we'd have stayed out there hadn't gotten run off by the storm I think we might have caught a marlin before we come home.

- It was a lot of action and a lot to see.

I really enjoyed it, look forward to coming back in the future for something else and just thanks again for having me.

- Well keep that hurricane offshore and these fish will be here all fall, buddy.

So look forward to having you back.

- Thanks a lot.

- Well we certainly hope you can use some of that information.

Now, let's catch up with Donna.

She's in the kitchen with a recipe for a very special salad.

[cheery guitar music] - Hi, today we're making a seafood salad and nothing is better than a chilled seafood salad on a hot day, especially if you're at the beach.

So I'm going to show you how you can use all the leftover seafood you have and make this great dish.

We're going to start out and we have some leftover crab that we had.

You know sometimes you have one filet left.

So what are you going to do with that?

Take it off, crumble it up and you're going to make a seafood salad out of it instead of just eating it like you had it the night before.

We're going to change up those leftovers.

We are going to use some scallops that I've chunked.

And we're also going to use some shrimp.

And you can use any kind of fish, any kind of seafood you like.

If you have mussels you want to put in here or big shrimp, little shrimp, scallops, crab, whatever you have just put it in here and it'll all be great we're going to chill it down.

It's going to be wonderful.

We're going to also add to this some mandarin oranges and some mandarin orange juice that comes in the container.

We want to buy the mandarin oranges that come in their natural juice.

And we're also going to add some green apples to this.

And you can put raisins in here, you can put Craisins, you can put nuts.

Whatever you happen to have and whatever your family likes is what you can incorporate into this recipe.

And we're going to use some tartar sauce as our combiner.

Instead of using mayonnaise and other kinds of things we're just going to use our bottled tartar sauce, it's got all your flavors in it already so that makes it nice and quick and easy.

We're going to toss this until coated well and I use about a fourth of a cup of the tartar sauce, but if your family likes your seafood salad a little bit saucier you can do that.

Or if you're going to chill this down a lot of times the ingredients will absorb that so you might want to put a little bit extra if you're going to wait and use this the next day.

So it's ready to go in the fridge.

We're going to chill it down for about an hour until it's nice and cold or you can do it for overnight.

We're going to show you what it looks like when it's finished.

As you can see we have all these beautiful colors going.

We have great texture as well with the crunch of the apples and I've served mine with some juicy ripe tomatoes which I think is always a great way to do it.

You can also hollow out a tomato if you like and put your seafood salad right inside which is always kind of nice too.

So I hope you enjoyed the seafood salad and I look forward to seeing you next time here on Simple Cooking.

- Thanks Donna, she does come up with some interesting recipes, but Joe let's head back down to the coast.

- I tell you that is some fun fishing if you've never done it and there's only two places on the coast that I know you can do that.

Where we were, in the Shackleford which is right there at Morehead city, Beaufort Inlet and then up at Hatteras or Buxton you hear about 'em catching them on the beaches up there too.

But just a real fun way to do it.

Unfortunately, we feel like we missed some of the better part of the bite that morning because of the tide, but you saw we caught a variety of fish.

Had one really nice Spanish and the thing about it you could see the fish jumping and chasing bait.

One of the things we had to fight that day was the abundance of bait and the fish were, that's why they finally downsized to the point where they were matching the bait that these fish were hitting.

But loads of fun and it happens, like Chuck said, he likes at the end of the summer, August, September when the bait starts flushing out of the inlets that time of year and all the major predators come in to feed on them and it can happen right there.

- It's just another adventure in North Carolina.

- Absolutely.

- Well, Joe Albea I'm John Moore thanks for joining us today on the Carolina Outdoor Journal.

- [Announcer] Make sure to visit our website for more information.

- [Announcer] The production of Carolina Outdoor Journal is made possible in part by: - [Female Announcer] Wildlife in North Carolina Magazine.

ncwildlife.org/winc.

- [Male Announcer] And by EZ Bait and Tackle, family owned and operated.

We've been fishing since 2003.

Come see the crew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and we can hook you up for all your fishing needs.

[light instrumental music] ♪