Early Summer Bite: Red Drum, Trout, and Spanish Mackerel Off Wilmington

This is Artificial Lure with your Wilmington, North Carolina fishing report. We’ve got a classic early-summer pattern setting up from the river to the beach. Around Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, weather today is warm and muggy with light southwest winds building in the afternoon, scattered clouds, and a small chance of a pop-up shower. Air temps are pushing the upper 80s to low 90s, so plan on a hot one by lunchtime. Sunrise over the water is right around a quarter after six, with sunset just after eight-thirty, giving you a long window to work the low-light bite. First light and the last hour of daylight are still your best bets for topwater and shallow-water action. For tides, the Cape Fear and Intracoastal are seeing a morning high followed by an outgoing tide through late morning, then a low midafternoon and a strong incoming into the evening. That falling water has been key around creek mouths, docks, and marsh edges, especially for speckled trout and red drum. Inshore, anglers have been picking up good numbers of **red drum**, **speckled trout**, and **flounder**. The reds have been cruising flooded grass and shell banks on the higher water, then dropping to deeper edges as the tide falls. Gulp shrimp on a 1/8-ounce jighead, gold spoons, and weedless paddletails in natural colors have been producing. For bait, live mud minnows and finger mullet under a popping cork around oyster points and creek mouths have been solid. Speckled trout are hanging in deeper bends and around current breaks on the last of the falling and first of the incoming tide. MirrOlure-style hard baits, small paddletails, and live shrimp under a cork are doing the work. Early, you can still get some blowups on topwater walkers over grass lines and along the ICW. Flounder reports have been improving with keeper fish coming off Carolina rigs and jigheads tipped with live minnows or Gulp along the bottom near inlets, bridges, and sandy drops. Work slow and stay in contact with the bottom. Nearshore, within a few miles of the beach, folks are finding **Spanish mackerel**, **bluefish**, and some **king mackerel** on the nearshore reefs and hardbottom. Small Clarkspoons and mackerel trees behind planers have been loading up on Spanish, especially on the early-morning tide. Slow-trolling live menhaden around nearshore structure is a good play for kings. Offshore, boats running to the Gulf Stream and deeper structure have been into **mahi**, **blackfin tuna**, and some **sailfish**, along with a steady **bottom bite** of snapper, grouper, and beeliners when conditions allow. A couple of local hot spots to consider: – **Masonboro Inlet and surrounding jetties**: Great mix of trout, reds, flounder, and Spanish. Work the rocks with jigs and live bait on the moving tide. – **Carolina Beach Inlet and Snow’s Cut**: Productive for reds and flounder around docks, rock walls, and deeper holes, especially on that dropping tide. If you’re wading or fishing from shore, the surf along Carolina Beach and Kure Beach is giving up sea mullet, pompano, and some slot reds on shrimp, sand fleas, and small Fishbites-style baits on double-drop rigs. Best overall lures right now: – Paddletail soft plastics in natural baitfish colors – Gulp shrimp or swimming mullet on light jigheads – Gold spoons and small topwaters for reds and trout – Small metal spoons and mackerel trees for Spanish Best baits: live shrimp, mud minnows, finger mullet, and fresh cut mullet. That’s your Wilmington fishing rundown from Artificial Lure. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a report. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn