Crystal Coast- NCCHARTERFISHING- Fishing- Swansboro, Emerald Isle, Morehead City

This afternoon we started out with some sheepshead fishing and the bite was steady. We fished for a couple hours and had about 50 strikes. Chicks definately rule today as Holly landed half of the fish brought aboard with the largest fish of the afternoon. But,,,, Steve did catch the first Sheepshead. We spent the last hour looking for some reds. We located a school of about 100 reds on a large sand flat but after tracking these fish for 20min. and then forcing them into a deeper pocket in the back of the bay, a commercial fishermen came flying across the the bay, past our boat, and right next to the school of fish. They spooked and scattered and we moved into deeper water. Guess you can't win them all... sorry guys!
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174
JCRONK@EC.RR.COM

This morning I left the dock with Doyle T. and his son aboard and we made our way up Bogue Sound looking for some redfish. After a short while of looking we wound up on a decent school of fish that were blowing up on mullet minnows. We started tossing Berkley Gulp baits on jighead into the fish with consistent hookups and then switched over to topwater baits. We had a ball for several hours and released about 15 redfish from 24 to 31in. and a decent speckled trout. Our largest was around 10lbs. We moved on and gave the sheepshead a try. The bite was a little slower today but we caught 7 and kept a few for a stew. Great job guys! Fun as usual!
Capt Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174
JCRONK@EC.RR.COM

I had Donald and Bill onboard this morning for some navigation direction and some fishing too. We spent some time floating live shrimp to black drum and also fed fiddler crabs to a mess of sheepshead. The bite was a little slow today after the tropical storm passed but these guys were still able to cover the bottom of the 120qt cooler. Great job guys! See ya again soon.
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE
JCRONK@EC.RR.COM
336-558-5697

Hello everyone, I wanted to take a moment to share some good news with you. I've been working with good friend Darryl M. for some time now and we've been working on putting together a new fishing television series. He's appropriately named it Carolina Fishing TV and our first show was covering footage aboard my boat with Myself (Capt. Jeff Cronk) and Capt. Mike Taylor during the first CCFA Redfish Tournament of the season on June 21st. The first show aired Sunday, July 20th at 9:30am on Fox 8/14. I believe it will play again next Sunday morning and we've got a bunch of Sunday morning lined up to do more that tournament coverage. We're going to show you some great inshore/nearshore fishing along the Crystal Coast along with some how too's and rigging tips. Check out the show's website for more information at www.Carolinafishingtv.com and click on current show to view the scaled down version of the show.
thanks,
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
336-558-5697

Sorry for posting so late everyone, both Mike and I were swamped with work, calls, emails, and "Honey to do lists" as soon as we got back from Savannah. Well, I've fished most of the week and the best action has been on Redfish, Sheepshead, and Flounder. Check out some of the pics below from this week. We've had trip with as many as 38 Redfish ranging from 5 to 12lbs....
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
336-558-5697

Well, I've tryed to get more of the pics off the camera from our recent trip to Savannah, GA for the third and final tournament of the IFA Redfish Tour's Atlantic Division. The upper end of the slot limit in GA is 23in. and Mike and I found a school of about 50 to 75 fish ranging from 19 to 27in. with alot of upper slot fish. We had this spot to ourselves for tournament day which was great! The tide got right on our spot about 12pm and we had to leave for weigh-in at 1:45. We caught and released 18 slot reds during that period and managed to put a 22.5in fish and a 21.5in. fish in the livewell. Over the course of the day we caught a mess of speckled trout, shovel-nosed sharks, ladyfish, and a few large redfish! Awsome fishing with a lot of backwaters. It was a tough mental game fishing this tournament when neither Mike nor I have ever navigated or fished these waters. That's the beauty of these tournaments, it only takes a few fish to earn a high ranking in the event. Mike and I earned 5th place in this event with 2nd place largest fish. Our top 5 finish also earned us the points we needed to complete the Atlantic Division as Team of the Year. Thanks to everyone with the IFA organizing this series and congrats to all the anglers who managed to bring fish to the scales. Mike and I are looking forward to fishing the IFA National Event in Panama City in November. If anyone has any general information, whether fishing related or with accomodations, please email or call me. We are willing to trade out some fishing back here in NC.
Capt. Jeff Cronk
jcronk@ec.rr.com
336-558-5697

Capt. Mike Taylor and myself will be heading down to Savannah the middle of next week to fish the IFA's third and final tournament of the Atlantic Division. We are currently in the lead for Team of the Year for that division but,,, it's gonna be tough as like the Charleston Event, we have never fished Savannah, Ga. We haven't had any time to go down and prefish and aren't sure where we want to stay, North or South of the tournament site. But, we want to participate and show our support in the series. It would be nice to find some reds though... especially when you're spending a few grand to make the trip. If anyone has any information regarding areas from Beaufort/Hilton Head to Savannah that consistantly hold upper slot reds from 20 to 23in., decent Ramps for those areas, and decent hotels on the water or near-by those ramps, please feel free to give me a call at 336-558-5697.

I've taken a couple days off as my sister, Laurie, came to town along with her husband, Todd, and their son, Hunter. Todd and I went to drop the boat in the water in preparation for a day on the water with the families but.... you know me... I couldn't stand the temptation... Todd and I had to make a couple of quick stops and work over a few Redfish. Todd picked up this nice 29in Red and little man got a perfect 21n Pup. We made it back with plenty of time to pick up my sis and hit the sandy beach like everyone else for the holiday.
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174
336-558-5697

July 2nd
This afternoon I had Teresa Price and her group onboard for a 4hr eco-tour. We had four things on the agenda and waisted no time getting from place to place to accomplish our goal. Our first stop was on one of my favorite shores that holds sharks teeth. We combed the shore for about 30min. and picked up about 50 sharks teeth with some 1in to 1.5in. teeth! We moved on to a shallow flat that holds a lot of clams. We hopped on the flat with a couple of small garden rakes and quickly scraped up 60 clams for these folks to take home for dinner. On our way to cast net some shrimp we swung by a shoal that I often find sand dollars. It took us about 10min. to locate them but... once we found them we scoured the area and picked up about 30 beautiful sand dollars. We finished up the trip on a small pod of shrimp and took a couple pounds to cook up with those clams. We had a wonderful afternoon on the water! Great job guys... and gals!
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS

252-764-2174

July 2nd, Today I had Mike Mulchi and his friend onboard for an early morning trip. These boys wanted to search for some flounder and we began by working boat docks in the area and also spent a little time drifting some channels near the inlet. We wound up catching a mess of flounder but released about 10 from 14.5 to 15.25in to be caught up in nets. Fortunately we got into a school of reds along some boat docks today as well as speckled trout to mix things up. Regarding the flounder...I don't mind a min. size of 15.5in. but it's a problem when the marine fisheries thinks that a 15.5in size limit on recreationals will increase the overall size of our flounder when we are releasing these flounder around 1000's of yards of gillnet and the commercial size is still 14in. With this rule we might as well just gut every flounder between 14 and 15.5in. prior to tossing back.... it's really ashame this state can't properly manage a species. I would have rather seen a recreational size limit that matches the commercial size limit and drop our creel limit from 8 to 5.
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174

With Chris and Missy Baker along with their young ones William and Anna we eased away from the dock around 6am and traveled to a nearby creek to catch some shrimp and mullet minnows to use this morning to catch some Black Drum, Redfish, and flounder. within a few minutes we had a livewell full of nice baits. We started out working float corks around some oyster beds and found some hungry Black Drum. As we worked the surrouning waters we didn't find much else so, we decided to make a stab at the flounder fishing. We spent about an hour drifting and wound up releasing 8 Flounder with a few decent sized fish. Our largest flatty today was about 3lbs Great Job William and Anna! It was great fishing with some skilled young people.
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE