From: "Jeff"

| http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/DESTI....ap/index.html
|
| EMERALD ISLE, North Carolina (AP) -- Pick a pier, any pier: Each of the more
| than 20 fishing structures that extend hundreds of feet from the North
| Carolina coast from Kill Devil Hills to Sunset Beach offers a cross-section
| of anglers and their prey.
|
| "You can see the different classes of fishermen as you look along the pier,"
| said Emerald Isle fishing guide Richard Ehrenkaufer, who publishes a Web
| guide to pier fishing under the pseudonym "Dr. Bogus."
|
| "The spot and flounder fishermen are in close. A little farther out you get
| the bluefish and Spanish mackerel and at the end you get the big game
| fishermen," Ehrenkaufer said. "I've seen a 150-pound tarpon caught off the
| end of a fishing pier."
|
| For many, a trip to the pier stirs memories of a first fishing trip with Dad
| or other relatives, when they gazed through the boards at the ocean below or
| held the rod as a struggling fish was hauled up. To Ehrenkaufer's way of
| thinking, the piers offer an "average Joe" experience for every one -- from
| experienced game-fish anglers to wheelchair-bound fishermen closer in.
|
| On a recent day at 1,000-foot-long Bogue Inlet Pier, equipment being used
| ranged from discount store rod-and-reel sets to specialized surf gear hauled
| in special carts with cooler racks and bait-cutting boards.
|
| Mike Stanley, whose family has owned the pier since 1971, said an average
| summer day draws about 200 paying customers, while the busy fall season can
| bring crowds of 500 or more anglers to the pier.
|
| For folks who love to fish but lack the resources to buy or charter a boat,
| piers are the way to go, he said.
|
| "Everybody gets access to be able to walk over the water," Stanley said.
| "Boats are good because you can go to the fish if you know where they're at.
| The pier is like a conveyor belt and you try to pick what's on the belt."
|
| And for many beachgoers, a day on the pier is the best kind of vacation.
|
| "Everybody talks about coming to the fishing pier," said Clara Flowers of
| Kingston, N.C., as she sat on a bench at Bogue Inlet Pier, her rod propped
| on the railing as she waited for a bite. "It's worth the drive to get away
| and relax."
|
| Flowers gets nostalgic as she remembers a day at Bogue Inlet that was so
| good she "was pulling them in two at a time."
|
| Regular Dale Collins enjoys the camaraderie among the pier anglers and said
| he turned down a chance to go out in a boat that day. "When the fishing's
| good inshore (within 3 miles of shore), you stand as good a chance as
| fellows on a boat," Collins said.
|
| Many piers charge a modest permit fee for anglers but are free to those who
| just want to take a stroll or snap a family picture. Nearly all sell food,
| drinks, fishing gear and bait and there's almost always someone willing to
| help a novice looking for advice on technique.
|
| For those family members not interested in landing fish, the beach is close
| at hand.
|
| Piers are "popular culture in North Carolina because they've been around for
| decades," Ehrenkaufer said. "You can fish for anything from pan fish right
| in the surf all the way to game fish at the end of the pier."
|
| Ehrenkaufer worries that the days of fishing piers are numbered, as coastal
| development makes the land they occupy so valuable that owners have little
| choice but to sell. Before 1996, there were as many as 31 piers along the
| North Carolina coast, he said. Storm damage and developers' high-dollar
| offers have shrunk the number; along Bogue Banks alone at least three piers
| have come down in the last decade.
|
| And Stanley is concerned that a new salt water fishing license being created
| by the state will require anyone who wants to fish from a pier to pay a
| license fee, driving down business. He said the only way he sees the new
| system working is if pier owners are allowed to pay a one-time license fee
| that will cover all their customers and that they can recover through
| admission fees.
|
| At the end of the pier, Collins rinsed a bait bucket attached to a long rope
| and lamented that his only catch of the day so far was a flounder too small
| to keep. He brightened, though, recalling the day he paid an extra charge to
| go to the special section of the pier where fishermen get more room to
| battle game fish and landed a 43-pound cobia.
|
| Asked how often he comes to the pier, he had an easy response: Any day "that
| my wife doesn't have anything planned for me."
|

I love Spanish Mackerel !

My biggest was 31" and boy they are good eats !
Too bad they aren't abundant here on the Jersey Shore.

--
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
http://www.ik-cs.com/got-a-virus.htm