Swan Quarter

There are a few wading opportunities.

There's a soundside pier over around Swan Quarter that can be really good.

But by and large, it's mostly going to be central to western Pamlico.

And we'll just keep an eye on what's happening back at Oregon Inlet As the water clears up and we'll see what the drum bite does from there.

There's still plenty of availability for guided backcountry boats.

Same thing is true over on the other side of the Sound, on the Swan Quarter and Englehardt side, there are guide boats available and you can do it yourself.

But it got really, really pretty yesterday, and I think we're going to see a really good drum bite.

They've been right before the blow.

I don't want to say too much about it, but there was a really good drum bite, we'll just say in the general vicinity of Swan Quarter.

So I'm talking about out in the sound, not from the shore, but out in the sound.

So it's something to think about.

When I say back of Oregon Inlet, I mean on the inshore side of the Bass Night Bridge.

That would include backside of Hatters and Ocracoke, but it also includes the mouth of the Neuse River, Swan Quarter, Bell Haven, and around to Englehart really is the epicenter of a lot of it.

Great fishing for these big drum, 44, 45, up to 50 inches and some even bigger than that.

And everybody's out there at night.

September the 17th, 1876, Swan Quarter, North Carolina.

A hurricane is driving toward the Carolina coast, and the people of a little Methodist church are watching the sky turn black over the Pamlico Sound.

They had finished their sanctuary only days before, lumber hauled by hand, bricks laid in the summer heat, and they had set aside this Sunday, September the 17th, to dedicate the building to God.

Storms batter the Carolina coast every year, and floodwaters have carried away wooden buildings for as long as men have been building them.

Not a single law of nature was broken that day.

And yet, nearly 150 years later, people in Swan Quarter still talk about it.

because some coincidences are too precisely aimed to dismiss.

It was as if an invisible hand set that building down exactly where it belonged.

Today's episode is all about fall fishing, and Aaron's talking to us about the tunes, but the drum have been really plentiful back in the sound, especially over my way.

Englehardt, Swan Quarter has been very, very good.

The best drum bite is actually down around the mouth of the Neuse River right now.

Okay.

All catch and release, mostly late evening and into the dark.

as the fish feed on that twilight bite but they're in all areas of the Sound from the Neuse River down on the south end to Oregon Inlet and Roanoke Island and over around When you get on to the west side, you're talking about Bellhaven, Swan Quarter, Englehard to Bellhaven probably is the best of it.

And there's a lot of people out there doing that every night.

Great big drum bite.

It's a good showing of them.

But there have been several weeks now of great drum fishing, mostly in the Pamlico Sound and mostly in the Englehard, Swan Quarter, Bellhaven stretch, and even on down to the mouth of the Neuse River is probably some of the best.

Some of the fishing is so good that there's light casting with popping plugs.

Other guys are using bait and fishing on the bottom, but they are also catching those big drum.