Fishing on Ocracoke Island
An 11.72-pound, 34-inch bluefish from the Ocracoke surf late in April 2026.
Fishing on the Beaches
Is fishing on Ocracoke Island first and foremost surf fishing, or would you prefer fishing at the boat launch, in Silver Lake whether from a dock or a boat, or in the inlet from a boat after you prepare your gear? You don’t stand on the island while fishing from a boat, but you might while preparing tackle. After all, anyone would include fishing from a boat in the inlet a form of Ocracoke fishing.
Even if it’s not “on” Ocracoke physically, it’s easily “on” Ocracoke as a state of mind. Much the same can be argued regarding boundary waters and state record fish, and I’ll try to post about that in the next six months to a year. I’ve published an article in New Jersey Federated Sportsmen’s News about the recent big musky submitted for state record status, which was denied.
But in continuing the thought about what’s “on” Ocracoke, even fishing from Portsmouth Island across that inlet from Ocracoke is a form of Ocracoke fishing, because Portsmouth Island is accessed only by boat, and my bet is that every boat that accessed the Island last year was from Ocracoke. There’s the possibility people rode all the way from Hatteras Island, but that’s a long way. There is no ferry traffic to Portsmouth, either.
Now let’s talk about the surf.
Fred Matero with a solid bluefish caught from the Ocracoke surf late in April 2026 while trying for reds. We did use steel leaders, and even with those, Fred once got bit off at the braid. We used frozen mullet cut to fit 8/0 hooks, which we bought at Tradewinds Tackle.
About surf fishing, and the other forms of Ocracoke fishing, my hope is that my readers are amateurs like I am, who see that since I can catch fish, maybe they can too. And who enjoy a well-written blog post.
I’ve been coming up from New Jersey to vacation on the Outer Banks since 1969, always going fishing for much of the time. I’ve longed to fish red drum during the off season in the surf since I was about 10-years-old. I was fascinated by big blues, too, and when we once did stay in Nags Head during Thanksgiving, I had my father drop me off at either Jeannette’s or Nags Head Pier, where I used cut mullet at night for hours before he picked me back up.
I understood I had no chance at catching a blue on that pier, but I fished that mullet with my seven-foot, medium-power spinning rod anyway. It was an act of faith that allowed me to witness the catch of a big one. A young man of about 25 caught it, and I had the courage to ask him what it weighed. “16,” he said. He said it succinctly in a way that pulled me further his way, into a life of fishing.
I’ve had a deep respect for blues ever since. The one I caught last week I correctly guessed at “about 12 pounds” before weighing it.
A 31-pound, 12-ounce bluefish caught by James Hussey at Hatteras on January 30, 1972 is the all-tackle world record. The world record red drum was caught on the Outer Banks in the Avon surf on cut mullet by David Deuel on November 7, 1984. It weighed 94 pounds, 2 ounces. Unfortunately, we’re limited today to length records, since no red drum over 27 inches may be kept. But the length of a redfish can be legally taken before it’s quickly released.
Pompano like this one get caught in the Ocracoke surf in April, if the target month is, instead, May. This one got caught while using sand fleas aboard the Tarheel, Ryan O’Neal’s charter boat. That’s O’Neal there holding my son’s fish.
Big black drum weighing as much as 50 pounds get caught in the Ocracoke surf. Spanish mackerel and flounder begin showing up in May; croakers, kingfish, probably spot, pompano show up then as well. King mackerel rarely get caught in the surf, but they’re around from late summer into October. Cobia, too, can sometimes get caught in the surf, especially near the inlet, but you can find it easier to catch sharks, skates, and sting rays during the warmer water seasons.
I can’t even hope to list the species in Pamlico Sound, not even those in Silver Lake, because I just don’t know. Silver Lake is really a harbor with a small inlet. It’s not freshwater, and as far as I know, there is no freshwater fishing on Ocracoke, although it’s possible one or two of those creeks you drive over on Highway 12 got cut off from Pamlico long ago and are fresh now. Don’t know. Even the drinking water comes by reverse osmosis. (I certainly believed I could taste that.)
Fred Matero fishes a fairly rough surf. I caught a couple of little blues and a dogfish that day, and Fred missed a hit or two.
We enjoyed 70-degree water temperatures at the end of April 2026 and caught a couple of large dogfish about three feet long. They’re very resistant to having the hook removed, as they shake their heads as if to reduce themselves to a gel, but with pliers in hand, each time Fred got the hook free, and I got the fish in water deep enough for it to swim free.
Yes, we did wear waders due to air temps in the 50’s.
A couple of four-wheel drive vehicles on the beach north of Ocracoke Island.
Not all the action is along South Beach towards the inlet, and a number of access points exist between the area of the ferries and the Village of Ocracoke. The people at Tradewinds Tackle can tell you which access points are fishing best and how to find them.
A storm came up as my family hiked South Beach some years ago. We did escape that strorm, though it’s easier to escape them when you’re driving on the beach—so long as you follow protocol and don’t get stuck!
Southern sting ray caught by my son, Matt, from the Ocracoke Lifeguard Beach at night.
Big outboard on the Carolina Skiff of Charter Captain Ryan O’Neal. He’s using a 25-foot Carolina Skiff now, by accounts I’ve read. As I recall, he used one last my family boarded in 2018, though somewhere along that line—we first boarded his boat in 2010—he did get a new boat.
Fishing Ocracoke Inlet
You don’t have to leave it to a charter captain if you’re an amateur. Fishing Ocracoke Inlet, that is. I know, because in 2006, my family rented a skiff, which I captained, and we caught some fluke. A whole lot of fluke, like we caught with Captain O’Neal, no.
Nor is paying for a charter cheating. It’s nothing more, and certainly nothing less, than making good company.
I should call it a flounder, but my Jersey verbiage calls that a fluke.
Cobia aren’t rare in the inlet, just uncommon, and sometimes they take “a spec rig,” an arrangement for bait usually intended for flounder rather than speckled trout. This one I caught hit just that. I believe the bait is squid. O’Neal says his clients catch 40-pounders on spec rigs, and when Matt hooked something that wouldn’t stop running—the hook pulled free—he assumed that’s what it was. “Most likely, a shark would have bitten through,” he said.
Ryan O’Neal holds a nice sheepshead that Matt Litton, positioned behind him, caught while using sand fleas. They put up a hell of fight. They taste delicious afterwards, too.
Besides big cobia, sheepshead as large as 12 pounds—maybe bigger—get caught in the inlet. They’re definitely not a surf fish, but fish—any species—have a way of finding a suitable environment, which is why sheepshead can get caught from ocean piers. Because they feed on barnacles on the pilings.
Spanish mackerel are very common in the inlet and delicious. They’re trolled on Clark spoons.
I could have mentioned Spanish mackerel first among inlet fish, because they, along with cocktail blues, were the first fish we connected with while fishing with O’Neal.. He trolls them, though he doesn’t always have his clients catch them that way. I had spent years fishing piers with Gotcha jiggers trying to catch a Spanish mackerel, but they always eluded me, and to this day, all my many Spanish got caught from the Tarheel. My son and I always fished Avon Pier, too.
Many of our cocktail blues we caught trolling, but in 2013, schools of many thousands or millions of cocktail blues, with great pods of Spanish mackerel mixed among them, cruised in the ocean just outside of the inlet mouth. We cast jigs heavy enough to range, small enough to get hit right off the bat.
Small bluefish about 16 inches long are abundant in the inlet and sometimes present in enormous numbers just beyond the mouth in the Atlantic. These fish are delicious, while many people complain of the gamey flavor of larger.
Blues, Spanish…and specks. Three of the specks. One for each member of my family. That’s the legal limit. We must have used squid on speck rigs for the trout.
O’Neal had spoken of speckled trout years before Matt and I finally caught some, my wife, who is Matt’s mother, aboard. Specks were kind of the feather in the cap of each of us, Trish included, because she lent her authority by overseeing everybody and everything. Her form of fishing with us. When tornadoes appeared in the distance, we all seemed to better understand them as no threat, because she needed to know that. It was obvious to me, but they felt even more out of our range—except to check them out—when she felt reassured by Ryan’s judgement.
Back in 2013 the limit for bluefish was a lot more than the present five, though I don’t remember what.
I photographed half of the docks at the boat launch last week. During the summer there are bait stealers all over. And not only them.
Boat Launch and Pamlico
Besides a trail leading back to Pamlico Sound from Highway 12, I don’t know of any spots to access the big water, besides that some access, at least to Hatteras Inlet, is available where the ferries leave and arrive. And, of course, the Ocracoke Boat Launch, maintained by the National Park Service. But first, about that trail, I did take it and fished for a couple of hours. The water was just too shallow. I had seen a guy cast a Rapala, catching specks, when we made a short stop at a Day Use Area near Avon.
That’s a great killiefish. Potted on Ocracoke.
That’s a pot. They’re about a foot-and-a-half long. I put fried eggs in mine. This one I painted green, I believe, in 1994, so it would blend in with the green water of the Green Brook in Scotch Plains, NJ, where I potted minnows.
I don’t remember if the lizard fish took killies, but they’re cool-looking.
That’s Fred fishing at the boat launch April 2026. He caught his fish that afternoon in Silver Lake.
My son once lost a flounder at the boat launch every bit of 18 inches long, and fluke in North Carolina aren’t as big as in New Jersey. The best way to fish that spot, I believe, is to live-line killies. But you have to access a spot along a tidal creek to pot them. I’ve never known Tradewinds Tackle or other bait shops on Hatteras Island or near Nags Head to carry them. In New Jersey, some people pot killies commercially and sell them to tackle shops. We were always fortunate to have vacation homes in proximity to Ocracoke tidal creeks where we potted them. From what I’ve gathered, there are no size or limit restrictions on killiefish: North Carolina DEQ. If you can’t get killies, try frozen shrimp first, squid second. Expect a lot of little fish to clean your hooks.
Matt’s redfish caught on a killie at the boat launch. Fish was released.
A killie caught a redfish at the launch for Matt, as well as a fluke every bit of 18 inches he lost as he tried to lead the fish right up and off the ramp. I’m not saying you can’t catch fish there on plugs and jigs. Just that if you can get killies, they’re an excellent bait.
Silver Lake
Silver Lake—the Ocracoke Village harbor—isn’t commonly known to have any fish. It’s full of them. To Fred and I, the possibility of good-sized catches remains unknown, though, with one exception.
My son’s being great at mathematics—Matt’s a physicist—he’s good at judging the size of fish. He told me he had spotted, beside a piling, a sheepshead of about 15 pounds. I tried to fly cast that sheepshead, but I never saw it.
Just a little gag grouper, right? But groupers…get big.
What else of good size might lurk in the depths? Depths I admit might not be much but have to accommodate not only regular boat traffic, but that of the Swan Quarter Ferry. I admit it’s not likely large groupers, really large groupers, would be anywhere but out to sea. But who knows what additional surprises? The sheepshead surprised me.
Croakers are a common fish of the surf, and they’re in Pamlico Sound and Silver Lake, too. They’re basically a drum, the same way a smallmouth bass is a bass. Pamlico Sound, by the way, is full of various drum fishes. Big red drum run along the Ocracoke beaches April into May, but from what I understand, it’s mostly a big push on the part of the fish to get into Pamlico Sound through the inlet. Many of them go all the way across to the far side. Mind you, it takes the Swan Quarter Ferry over two hours to get to the other side from Ocracoke.
Kingfish are also drums, though I believe I would eat a croaker first. All of these smaller fish species I’ve photographed are vulnerable to shrimp and/or squid presentations, including on jigs.
Plenty of small fish are more understandable than Silver Lake’s being loaded with big ones. But among them, some are good representatives of the species. Fred caught a really small flounder—about 11 inches—near where the ferry arrives. (We fished the harbor end of April 2026.) The next day, he fished off the dock allowed us by Ocracoke Island Realty, where he caught a 14-inch flounder on a jig and Gulp bait. It was released. The legal limit is 15 inches, one fish per day.
But legality aside, what fascinates me a great deal is that fluke are quite evidently available throughout Silver Lake.