Early Summer Red Drum and Flounder Bite Heating Up Along Cape Fear Coast

This is Artificial Lure with your Wilmington, North Carolina fishing report. We’ve got a classic early‑summer pattern setting up along the Cape Fear coast. Around Wilmington, first light fishing is key. Sunrise is right around 6:00 a.m. with sunset near 8:30 p.m., so you’ve got long feeding windows on either side of the day. Local tide tables for the Cape Fear River and Masonboro area show a pre‑dawn incoming tide, flipping to outgoing mid‑morning, then another push back in late afternoon. Work those tide changes hard. Weather is warm and muggy, with daytime highs climbing into the upper 80s to low 90s, a light southwest breeze and typical coastal humidity. Expect scattered clouds and the chance of a pop‑up shower after lunch, but winds stay manageable for inshore and nearshore boats. That southwest flow stacks bait along the beaches and in the inlets. Inshore, the red drum bite has been steady. Anglers are picking up slot reds along flooded grass edges and oyster bars on the rising tide. Best baits: live or cut mullet, live shrimp under a popping cork, and mud minnows on a Carolina rig. If you’re throwing artificials, tie on a 3–4 inch paddle tail in natural mullet or new penny colors, or a gold‑blade spinnerbait slow‑rolled along the bank. Folks working creeks off the Intracoastal are also finding a mixed bag of reds and flounder around dock pilings. Speaking of flounder, they’ve been coming off sandy drops near inlet mouths and around the jetties. Live finger mullet or mud minnows on a fish‑finder rig are producing, along with white or glow bucktail jigs tipped with Gulp swimming mullet. A few keepers are showing up, but expect to weed through some shorts. Speckled trout action is fair but worth the effort at first and last light. Look around deeper bends, grass points, and current seams. Topwater plugs in bone or chrome early, then switch to soft plastics on 1/8–1/4 oz jigheads once the sun climbs. Mirrored jerkbaits and shrimp‑imitating plastics under a cork are good bets if the water’s a bit stained. Nearshore, small boats running a few miles off Wrightsville and Carolina Beach are finding Spanish mackerel and bluefish around bait pods and near the inlets. Troll Clark spoons, small drone spoons, or flashy casting jigs behind planers and #1 planing boards. When they’re busting on top, you can have a blast casting gotcha plugs and small metals into the feeds. King mackerel action is starting to pick up on the nearshore live‑bottom and wrecks with live menhaden slow‑trolled on wire stinger rigs. A few cobia are still wandering the nearshore waters. Keep a heavier spinning rod rigged with a bucktail jig or a live bait ready if you see one cruising behind rays or hanging around wreck buoys. Couple of hot spots to circle on your chart today: – **Masonboro Inlet and the adjacent jetties**: solid mix of reds, flounder, and trout on the inside; Spanish and blues just outside on the tide lines. – **Carolina Beach Inlet and Snows Cut**: good current, lots of bait, and a dependable bite for reds, flounder, and the occasional trout, especially around the bridges and rock edges. Focus on moving water, keep an eye out for nervous bait and birds, and don’t be afraid to switch between live bait and artificials until you dial in what they want. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe for more local fishing updates. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai. Great deals on fishing gear https://amzn.to/44gt1Pn