editor's Letter

By Matt Winter

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Matt Winter/Tideline Magazine

ONLY A MATTER OF TIME: Though you can catch fish year-round, spring really marks the beginning of another great fishing season.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm ready for some serious fishing.

I've had my fill of black seabass, and I'm tired of freezing my tail off during early morning runs across the harbor and out through the jetties.

I want the water to warm up and the fish to wake up. I want the bait to move back in, and I want schools of hungry redfish to start working the mud flats again.

I want to hang around the tackle shops, buy things I don't really need and shoot the breeze with anglers I haven't seen in a while.

I want to get up early, launch the boat and idle past all the charter captains waiting at the docks for customers who are running late after a long night.

I won't even mind the crowded boat landings or complain about folks who block the ramp : for a little while, at least.

With any luck, we'll get a good spring trout bite in 2009, the kind that produces everybody's best fish of the year (see Page 18 for some great advice on how to take advantage of that bite). Soon after, the resident redfish should kick it into gear.

Once spring really gets going, many of us will start rolling down south to Beaufort for some world-class cobia fishing. Others will run offshore in the high hope of rediscovering our seemingly long-lost yellowfin tuna.

By late April and early May, we'll all be chomping at the bit for an intense dolphin bite - think May 2007, when for a time, the dolphin were so thick at the ledge that the water seemed to glisten green and yellow.

From there, it should just get hotter and hotter. Billfish. Wahoo. King mackerel. Tarpon. Sailfish.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready.

Here's to the start of a great fishing season!