Photo of flounder

The Great Provider
We departed Wrightsville Beach at twilight to get to Cape Fear early enough to settle in and tour the area. We were anchored in 12ft of water in a creek that meandered up alongside grass land. Marg and I and the crew from Blue Blazes jumped into our dinghies and started out on the two and a half mile trip to Bald Head Island. We were stopped as soon as we came to the main channel by 4 or 5 dolphins frolicking in the tidal currents. After the usual photo shoot we continued the bone crunching trip across the inlet. Unfortunately it was Sunday with lots of boat traffic and the inlets had high waves and confused seas. The new 15 horse power motor was great. We would never have been able to make the trip with the old one.
Bald Head Island was a great visit. It is only accessible by boat and there are no cars on the island only golf carts. They must be modified because there is a 18mph speed limit and I am sure some of the carts were speeding going down the narrow, tree covered, paved paths. The cape enjoys warmer weather because of the closeness of the Gulf Stream in the area and Bald Head Island benefits from this with palm trees and Spanish moss. It's a beautiful little island and was well worth the trip.
But I wanted to get back early to try my new casting net. As soon as I deposited Marg off on the boat, I anchored the dingy in a likely spot on the bank of our creek and started casting for shrimp. It's not as easy as you would think. I just threw the net overboard ninety five percent of the time (in one lump) however, I did get it to open up partially a few of the times. At first I was in too shallow of water and was lifting up clumps of dead oyster shells. As I retrieved the net, I noticed that not all the shells were old. There were some live ones attached, so I separated them out as best I could. . except I was here for shrimp and besides the rivers and creeks around here are closed to the taking of oysters (I just had to have a taste - 4 did not get away). In deeper water, I was not bringing up clumps of mud and oysters, but no shrimp either. Finally I did catch the smallest flounder you could imagine, these are the fish with that are flat with both their eyes on one side and the other side is white but their mouth is the same as other fish.
With a sore back from all my toil I returned with my catch to the mother ship where the captain was not impressed and had me return the flounder back to the creek to put on a few pounds. I was able to keep the oysters and they tasted great. . .very salty and how fresh is that!

Our visit to Bald Head Island -see photo gallery