You have waited all year to head back to our peaceful little sandbar for some well-deserved relaxation and fishing.You know you will be able to find a way to relax but now you want to know if you will be able to find the fish.As your vacation nears, you want to know the answer to this question so what do you do, call Frank and Fran’s and ask if the fish will be biting when you’ll be here and our response is always, well, “it depends”.

Fishing here on the island is very dependent upon the weather.In the spring, fish begin to migrate back to the surf as the water starts to warm up.The water warms up when the southwest winds blow and push the warm water back in.

In the words of Frank Folb, “The island is shaped like a pork chop” as you can see in the image below.Most of the Outer Banks runs north to south but on Hatteras Island the pork chop bone bends and turns and runs east to west and that area is known as Cape Point.As you can see in the image when the wind is blowing out of the southwest, warm water is pushed up to the south side of Cape Point and this helps to bring the fish to the surf.In the spring, we look for a southwest wind to bring the fish in.A light southwest wind is preferable though as a long sustained southwest wind can cause rough conditions making it difficult to fish.

In reverse, a northeast wind tends to push cold water into the north side of Cape Point in the spring.A northeast or east wind also makes fishing from the beach miserable unless you are looking for a free skin exfoliation!If you really want to fish on days where the wind is out of the northeast or east, it is best to go to the south side of the island so that the wind is at your back.

In the fall, a light northeast wind can be good as it helps to cool the water and helps it clear up bringing the fish back to the surf.

West winds are not good as far as surf fishing as they create dirty water and poor fishing conditions.West winds are good for sound fishing though as it pushes the fish up to the sound side beaches.

It is also important to know how to check the sea surface temperature maps so that you can plan your fishing spot.Sea surface temperature maps can be found on the Rutgers University site located here:https://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/sat_data/?nothumbs=0&product=sst®ion=capehat.Here is a sample map, the yellow areas are in the upper 60’s so those would be the best areas to fish at the time this satellite image was taken.If you see a sea surface map that has no color and shows everything as white, this means that there is too much cloud coverage for an image to be rendered.

In the fall as has already been said here, we want to have NE winds to cool and clear the water. A steady wind that last for a good while will also switch the current to a southerly direction, keeping the water clear, generally free of grass and cause the water temps to drop. This will eventually kick off the bait run and bring in the big fish.

Now you know why our answer to whether or not the fish will be biting when you are here is “it depends”.It depends on which direction the wind is blowing and it depends on the water temperature.We can tell you based on history which fishing are biting at a certain time of the year but it is hard to say what they will be doing a few weeks or a month away because, “it depends”.The best advice that we can give is that the best time to fish is when you have time to fish!Stop in and see us when you arrive and we can tell you what is currently biting.My favorite teacher once told me, “you cannot steal second base with your foot on first”.The same theory applies here, you cannot catch fish if you are lounging around by the pool rather than sitting on the beach so get out there and give it a shot!