Wilmington Fishing Report: Stellar Bite Ahead of Fall Fronts

Artificial Lure here with your Wilmington, NC fishing report for Wednesday, September 24, 2025. It’s a near-perfect early fall morning along the Lower Cape Fear—air’s crisp, the sunrise hit at 7:01AM, and we’ll see sunset at 7:05PM. Tide action today is strong, with a morning low at 3:21AM and a solid high tide rolling in at 9:49AM, peaking at 5.11 feet. Look for the afternoon low at 4:01PM, and the evening high at 10:04PM hitting 4.23 feet. That means hot currents moving bait and setting up stellar opportunities at both ends of the day, especially around tide changes, as pointed out on Tide-Forecast.com. The weather’s set to be comfortably mild with a light breeze out of the northeast and mostly sunny skies—ideal conditions to target active fish before any autumn front rolls through this weekend. Recent catches around Wrightsville Beach, the Cape Fear River mouth, and Carolina Beach have anglers smiling. This week, surf and pier fishers have been scoring respectable numbers of **slot red drum, speckled trout, and a strong run of flounder**. The jetties and deep drop-offs near the mouth of the river are seeing **bull reds up to 36 inches**, especially on the outgoing tide when mullet schools push seaward. Smaller puppy drum are coming in behind them, as well as some surprise sheepshead around the bridge pilings. Inshore, expect **speckled trout** feeding heavy as we move into the fall transition. The bite turns on during first light and picks up again as the sun drops in the evening. Look for them in deeper holes and along grass edges near Bradley Creek and Masonboro Sound. For the bait and tackle, now’s the time to throw those *artificial lures*—paddle-tail soft plastics in natural colors and MirrOlure suspending twitchbaits are on fire for both reds and trout. Topwater plugs get explosive action early, especially around oyster beds and flooded grass. Anglers fishing live bait have done best with mud minnows and finger mullet under popping corks, especially during that morning high tide push. If you’re pier-bound, cut shrimp and squid are pulling through whiting and pompano, with a few scattered Spanish mackerel caught on gotcha plugs. Nearshore wrecks continue to yield decent numbers of **king mackerel**—try trolling flashy spoons or slow-trolling live menhaden. A couple local **hot spots** to circle on your map: - The south end of Masonboro Island, especially the sloughs behind the breakers, is loaded with bait this week and should produce multi-species action at both low and high tide swings. - The rocks and seawall along Snow’s Cut have been a drum and flounder magnet—work the current seams and eddies with jigheads tipped with Gulp shrimp. Keep an eye on that tidal movement today—the high tidal coefficients signal peak current and solid feeding windows, especially two hours on either side of the morning and evening highs, per Tides4Fishing’s chart. Thanks for tuning into your Wilmington-area fishing report. Be sure to subscribe for This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.