Oct. 30th, 2007
Hey look! What's going on down the beach? It looks like a highway of vehicles, mostly trucks, driving rapidly East on Emerald Isle beach. They all stopped at the 7000 block and were lining up by the beach. I'm at the 7300 block so I walked down to the beach and then along to beach to figure out what was going on. As I approached the parking lot (otherwise known as the beach), I see that several of the trucks are already filled with fish to the point of spilling out of the trucks beds. Then I see it. 
A net going out from the beach a few hundred yards into the Atlantic Ocean hanging from a floating ball on one end and attached to an old tractor on the beach end. I learned that this is what they called a "stop net", I guess mostly because it stops the migrating fish as they go on their way South, or West in the case of Emerald Isle, the nets catch a migrating group, the fishermen go around with a net from behind and beach the catch and then pick the fish into baskets and then onto the trucks. All in all, there were at least 20 people in the operation, they were quite busy fighting the suft and keeping the net up to prevent the hundreds of jumping mullets from leaving the enclosed area. As they approached the beach, the nets were so heavy that it required the heavy work of several men.
A net going out from the beach a few hundred yards into the Atlantic Ocean hanging from a floating ball on one end and attached to an old tractor on the beach end. I learned that this is what they called a "stop net", I guess mostly because it stops the migrating fish as they go on their way South, or West in the case of Emerald Isle, the nets catch a migrating group, the fishermen go around with a net from behind and beach the catch and then pick the fish into baskets and then onto the trucks. All in all, there were at least 20 people in the operation, they were quite busy fighting the suft and keeping the net up to prevent the hundreds of jumping mullets from leaving the enclosed area. As they approached the beach, the nets were so heavy that it required the heavy work of several men.
Later on, I Googled the "stop net" concept and found out that this is something that has been going on for quite a few years, carried out by a few families here in the Bogue Banks of North Carolina. Read their story in this 2002 account of the Stop Net in Bogue Banks. Apparently here is the only place on the Atlantic Coast that this is happening. However, I certantly didn't see anyone "official-looking" checking things out but I hope someone knew what was going on. When the nets came in, the pickings (of fish) began. I even got some fish to bring home... I didn't realize they didn't want to keep blues, so I brought three small fish and prepared them for dinner. Not bad, although I was told that they don't keep well, so the fresher the better. This was as fresh as they get.... from the beach to the oven.
Well, that was my first fishing experience in Emerald Isle, well, there were fish involved weren't there? And I did catch them. It was more like picking it up from the ground, but whose counting.
I've been here in E.I. for a week now. Fishing is going to be done by default since I happen to be right in front of a huge body of water (Atlantic Ocean), and as I understand it, that body of water happens to be full of fish... And let me not forget, that now that I'm retired (read unemployed), and will need to supplement our diet with some free protein -"free" being the operative word.
Enough for today, got to get my fishing gear ready... Let's stop the feeding frenzy fishing flogger today.
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