NCCHARTERFISHING-Capt.'s Jeff Cronk and MIke Taylor-Crystal Coast, Swansboro, Emerald Isle

Folks, I know I've had many of you inquire about availablility for speckled trout trips this november. I still have several 4hr afternoon trips from 1pm until 5pm on November 18th and 25th open. Several other local guides will have some availability and I will happily refer you to them. These last few dates for November will go fast so, call asap to reserve one. I still have open dates for December and January for targeting speckled trout, redfish, and stripers... Largest striper on topwater baits last season was 45lbs 14oz... many 20 to 30lbers caught! Feel free to call or email for December thru January availability at 910-326-7512 or 336-558-5697 or email jcronk@ec.rr.com If any other dates open up for November I will post them here on the report board asap. Thanks for your support! Capt. Jeff

10/29/06 My charter scheduled for today didn't happen so I headed out this morning by myself and was eventually joined by Tim Staley and Marty (good friends since highschool- gosh that was a long time ago). Anyway, we fished for several hours this morning and then again for a couple of hours mid-day... the trout bite was awsome! We wound up landing 58 speckled trout weighing from 1.5 to 3.5lbs with most fish falling in the 2 to 2.5lb range. We kept our limit and released the rest... We caught fish today on Berkley Gulp Baits, mirrolures, and live shrimp... Back at Yana's for lunch at 1:30 and cleaning fish. It really looks like there will be some serious fishing here in Swansboro for the Ed Sewell Memorial Trout Tournament this coming Sunday, Nov. 5th. Anybody interested in fishing the tournament... info. can be picked up at Dudley's Marina in Swansboro. Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS- 910-326-7512 OR 336-558-5697.

Well I had a Father and son from Greensboro in town for a soccer game and hoping for a chance to get onboard and catch some fish before the game. Conditions were not the best this morning with sustained 20 mph winds from the SW and the rain just ending... but Brett and his son really wanted to get on some fish so, we headed out.... we fished 3 holes and found fish on two of them... We managed to land 8 speckled trout from 1.5 to 3.45lbs, 2 sheepshead, 3 black drum, and 3 redfish using live shrimp and Berkley Gulp 3in baits on light jigheads. We had a ball and were back at the dock around 12:30. Temps were very pleasant this morning starting out at 68 degrees. Fish'n will be tough the next couple of days with the water very stirred up from the strong SW blow... the water today on incoming tide was so sandy you couldn't see your bait 2in. under the water. So much for our super clear water from the past few days... Miss it already...
Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE- 910-326-7512

10/27/06 Well, I know it was blowing 20mph from the SE this afternoon and raining it's butt off... but, I couldn't stand knowing where there were a mess of speckled trout and not being there for them... so, shot out this afternoon for 2hours with James Copeland onboard and we slaughtered the speckled trout! We fished two holes using mirrolures and put just over 30 speckled trout in the boat, kept our limit of 1.75 to 2.5lbers, and released the rest.... we probably had another 15 trout pull off the hooks! AWSOME BITE! What a mess of good sized speckled trout this season! I'm getting reports of good trout fishing all over Morehead city, Swansboro, Sneadsferry, and elsewhere from the surf to the heads of the mainland creeks... definately our best season in 10+years for size and numbers. Let's keep our fingers crossed for a third winter without any bad freezes! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS - 910-326-7512 or 336-558-5697 or email jcronk@ec.rr.com

10/26/06 Thursday afternoon. A short trip this afternoon with a couple from Ohio onboard. Their first time ever fishing in our area and they were willing to catch whatever was cooperating.... Well, we stopped on a hole and after teaching both how to work a spinning reel... we managed to put 3 pretty speckled trout up to 2.5lbs and 4 bluefish in the boat using Berkley Gulps on jigheads and mirrolures. We moved on to a second spot and tried some live shrimp and started laying it to the specs and puppydrum. We put a few more in the boat and released some and headed for the hill. Awsome afternoon... directly to catching and back to the dock quick... no down time! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS- 910-326-7512

10/25/06 I went out to hit a few trout this afternoon and what a bite!!!!! I started off tossing berkley gulp sw baits and hooked up about every other cast on 1.5 to 2lb trout. Then, I switched over to a mirrolure to see what it would produce... the result, a bunch of trout up to 2.25lbs... then, for the heck of it, I tied on two different topwater baits and IT WAS ON!!! I was getting 1 to 5 explosions almost every cast... even had a cast with 9 explosions... every single one was speckled trout from 2 to almost 3lbs! I must of had 10 pull off the hooks and another 40 to 50 strikes. Wound up landing about 40 speckled trout with no one else around! All fish were caught on reels spooled with 10 Berkley Crystal Fireline. This super braid is awsome! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS- 910-326-7512 OR EMAIL JCRONK@EC.RR.COM

10/25/06 Wed afternoon Mike had a 4hr trip with Jim Pepper and his son Guy. It was an all out Redfish blitz with constant double and triple hook-ups time and time again... It was awsome sightcasting to a school of 1000 or more redfish! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE- 910-326-7512 OR TAYLOR-MADE 252-725-2623

10/25/06 Wednesday morning 6hr trip Jim Parson's crew onboard with Mike. What a trout bite! These guys landed over 50 trout and kept their limit of 30 along with a bluefish and a nice sized flounder! Great Job Mike! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS.... 910-326-7512 OR EMAIL jcronk@ec.rr.com

10/25/06 Tuesday morning Mike Taylor had a 6hr trip with his father, James Taylor, and George Haislip onboard.... These boys WORE OUT THE SPECKLED TROUT!!!! They boated over 60 speckled trout and kept their limit of 2 to 3lb specs along with a 26in redfish! Man,,, the trout bite is incredible down our way! Definately the best bite of large fish in 10+years! - Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS- 910-326-7512

10/21- Jason Guthrie and Myself fished the Jacksonville Trout Tournament. We fished the Swansboro Area and managed to boat 19 speckled Trout ranging from 1.5 to 2.66lbs and weighed our top ten fish in for a weight of 20.24lbs and took 5th place... While targeting trout we also managed to get into redfish and flounder too. The fishing was great despite the early strong NE winds. Almost all of our fish were caught on Berkley Gulp SW baits and Mirrolures.


10/22- I ran a 6hr trip this morning with Tim Farless and crew aboard looking for some good fishing on the internal waters. Well, we almost covered the front deck of that 24ft Triton and managed several inshore Slams! Yeee ha! We wound up with 16 speckled trout (10 fish aggregate of 21.70 lbs), 2 Redfish, 1 Black Drum, and a bunch of purrrty flounder! Great morning on the water! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS- 910-326-7512... Call for open dates! If i'm booked I will refer you to one of several other Excellent local fisherman/ Capt.'s (no charge to you or them) Just want to see everyone go fish'n!

Well, It was another great turn out of fisherman, weather, and fish for the 4th Annual Jacksonville Speckled Trout Tournament. For those of you looking for an excellent tournament to enter the family in for some fun.... and TONS of prizes... this has got to be one of the best on the coast! There were about 100 ticket drawing prizes given out ranging from $5 to $100 value given away with the average person receiving 2 to 4 prizes. This is one of the earliest Fall season trout tournaments in the Eastern Central region of the Coast and again there were plenty of trout weighed in... With a 31 boat field this year the 1st place prize for heaviest aggregate weight was $1,200 and it payed out through 8 places (10 places if 50boats) There was also a large cash Calcutta for the heaviest fish. The top 8 places for a 10 fish aggregate were as follows: 1st Place- John Gainey/ R.D. Benedict (29.28lbs), 2nd place- Danny Teachey/ Mike Teachey (27.32lbs), 3rd place- David Moore/Mike Phillips (21.93lbs), 4th-Place Buddy Gainey/Jake Gainey (21.30lbs), 5th Place- Capt.Jeff Cronk/ Jason Guthrie (20.24lbs), 6th Place- John Hislop/ Stuckey Payne (20.18lbs), 7th Place- Capt. Ricky Kellum/ Uncle Larry (19.44lbs), 8th Place- Doug Kellum/ Jimmy Kellum (19.36lbs). The 1st place Junior Angler prize wen to Doug Kellum's son. The 2nd Place Junior Angler prize went to Jake Gainey (2.87lbs). The top 3 Big Fish Calcutta positions went to 1st Place- R.D. Benedict/John Gainey (5.76lbs), 2nd Place- Danny/Mike Teachey (4.44lbs), 3rd Place- Chris Sewell/ Jonathan Mobley (3.60lbs). There was a full spread of Fried Chicken, Pizza, and the fixens at the Captains meeting on Friday afternoon and another spread of Grilled burgers and dogs at the weigh-in on Sat. afternoon. This has honestly got to be one of the best tournaments around! Also... there are two more excellent tournaments coming up here in Swansboro soon.... We've got the Ed Sewell Memorial Trout Tourny on Sunday, November 5th with Boundaries and the Swansboro Speckled Trout Tourny on Saturday, November 11th with no Boundaries and over $2000 up for grabs on the 1st place weight. Check local marinas for entry forms. Call Chris Sewel at 910-325-5793 or 910- 459-2257 if you need an entry form for the November 5th Tournament. See ya on the water! Capt. Jeff cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS. 910-326-7512

10/15/06 5yr old Graham Guthrie landed this mess of speckled trout while fishing with his mom (karen Guthrie) and his dad (Jason Guthrie) of Swansboro... Jason is a good friend and will definately be fishing the upcoming Jacksonville Trout Tourny with me after seeing this bowshot of specs! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE- 910-326-7512

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

10/15/06 Well, my morning trip was over at 2:15 and I decided to go back out with Chris Pope of Boats Unlimited in New Bern onboard for a short while... We were out just long enough to hookup two redfish on spinnerbaits in the backwaters when he had to head for home..... dropped chris back off at his boat and headed back out with a good friend aboard for some late afternoon trout fishing from 4:30 till 6:00. The trout were GNAWING! We landed 27 speckled trout and kept about 15 to take home. The trout ranged from 16in. to 20in.... largest was 3.68lbs... All fish were caught on both mirrolures and Berkley 4in. Shrimp fished on 1/8oz jigheads using 10lb Berkley Fireline CRYSTAL! Awsome day on the water! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE Charters- 910-326-7512 or 336-558-5697 or email jcronk@ec.rr.com

10/15/06 Sunday 6hr Trip with James Morton and crew onboard... We started out the morning hunting some king mackerel... after several hours and 10+knockdowns we headed for the inlet to locate some redfish... the swell was up a little and we couldn't get right on the beach but we did manage to find a school of several hundred reds and hooked up with 7 redfish before we lost track of them... We boated 4 kings, 1 albacore, and a few redfish today... great morning on the water and the weather turned out to be great... Capt. Jeff Cronk- 910-326-7512

10/14/06 Sat. AFternoon 4hr Trip 11:30- 3:30pm This afternoon I had Walt Bass and friends aboard for an exciting Redfish Trip! We found several larges schools of Redfish that were working the shallows very well. These boys managed between 50 and 60 Redfish with almost non-stop action for 3 solid hours. We had more quadruple hook-ups than I can remember! What a Day!!! I mean afternoon. Capt. Jeff Cronk- 910-326-7512- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS

10/14/06 Sat. Morning trip with good friend, Jason Guthrie, aboard.... We went scouting out some redfish and had a ball casting to schools of 50 to 1000 redfish ranging from 24 to 30in. We caught and released a mess then headed for the dock for an afternoon Charter. Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE-910-326-7512

10/13/06 Derrick Murphy and his son aboard friday afternoon for a few hours.... things started out good as we found some redfish working in the shallow water in a flooded bay in Bogue Sound.... but just after the bite started... we had problems with the trolling motor... then the wind picked up strong out of the NE... shortly later we were back at the dock... Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS 910-326-7512

10/13/06 The Jacksonville 4th Annual Speckled Trout Tournament is sooon to be ON! The fish day is Sat. Oct. 21st with a Capt. Meeting on Friday afternoon at the Marina Cafe' in Jacksonvill, NC. The Shirts are in and can be purchased by contacting Danny sbrocco at sbrocco@ec.rr.com or by calling him at 910-346-4328 or 910-548-3474
short sleeve $15 long sleeve $20 all white for the tounament/ can take
order for grey/ash shirts plus shipping!! if sold out will take orders
for those also!! Folks you still have time to ask Danny for a Tournament entry form too.... You can join as late a friday night to fish Sat.'s tourny.... this is a great event for the family to participate in...

Well, I started off the morning getting some preventative maintenence on my teeth and then met the one and only fishing legend Roland Martin for some good fishing. Roland and his crew wanted to do some filming of the Awsome Redfish action we have here along the NC Coast sooooo, he hopped onboard and we went searching.... We have recently caught them in the surf by boat but with the cloudy skies, murky water, and NE swell hitting the surf, we opted to work the backwaters. Here in the Swansboro area we have dozens of creeks and hundreds of flooded marshes that we've been targeting tailing reds for years as one of those "best kept secrets." Well, we're finally letting the cat out of the bag..... today I stopped on an area that had upwards of 50 to 75 reds tailing and pushing headwater (waking) as much as 50 ft back into the marshes and worked the reds hard for several hours attempting to throw only topwater baits... They were a little spooky but they began feeding and in about 2hrs of working a 75yd stretch of flooded marsh, Roland Martin and I had upwards of 30 fish explode on Topwater Baits. We were fishing barbless hooks and lost many of them but managed to land 17 redfish from 24 to 27in....AND YOU KNOW ME.... I had to toss one of my favorite Berkley Gulps in a couple of times... for two instant fish! We had a 2 fish weight of probably between 13 and 14 lbs and released all fish alive. The Photographer got a lot of our topwater strikes with mulitple explosions and we finally left the fish around 4:30pm with just a couple of minutes back to the dock and then got some dinner... I'm not sure what date the show will hit TV but as soon as I confirm the date with Roland I will surely post the date here on my site so those of you that wish to view can do so... Have I said lately how much I love my life! PS.... I thought I had some energy until I fished with Roland...he's in his 60's, he's fished probably 10 days straight from daybreak until dark through all the crap weather we've had and still couldn't sit still during dinner ... Excellent fisherman! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE - 910-326-7512 OR 336-558-5697

10/12/06 CHECK OUT THIS SHOT! And you wonder why they're called GULP Baits! Capt. Mike Taylor and myself went out this afternoon scouting out some trout holes for about 1 1/2 hrs and found fish on almost all of them.... We had 12 specs from 1.75 to 2.75lbs All on the Berkley Gulp SW baits! These fish smacked the baits with vengence... coming to the surface and shaking and jumping! Awsome site they weren't playing with the bait... they were literally Gulping it... the bait pictured is 5in. long and almost gone down the fishes throat! Sweeeet... just a few open dates from now through December... call asap if you want to reserve an awsome fishing experience for Trout, Reds, Flounder, and the stripers start around 3rd week of December through January... Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS!- Swansboro, NC 910-326-7512 or 336-558-5697

10/11/06 Capt. Mike Taylors Crew with a mess of speckled trout during a 6hr trip here in Swansboro.... Guys, the trout are biting...! Go Fishing or give us a hollar if you want us to do the work! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE 910-326-7512 or Capt. Mike Taylor 252-725-2623

FIRST, SORRY FOLKS FOR THE LACK OF PICS.... CAMERA TROUBLES... HAD TO USE MY CELL PHONE TO TAKE A COUPLE OF SHOTS LAST TWO TRIPS.... got the camera taken care of and ready for more...
10/7/06 Well, the weather started out ugly and slowy got better. We left the dock around 6:45 not sure what to expect but we found a few speckled trout up to 2lbs before the crew decided they'd like to take advantage of the calming wind and look for flounder in the ocean. We found some flatties along with lots of seabass and a few small grouper. We wound up boating about 11 flounder and kept 9 with the largest at 3lbs and kept a few seabass to clean too. Back at the dock around 12:45. Decided to hit a hole and check out the trout situation before heading to the Oberta Redfish Cup Weigh-in. Had a friend onboard and worked a favorite hole for just over an hour to land 9 speckled trout up to 2+lbs and missed several more. All of the trout hit the 5in. pink Berkley Jerk Shad on 1.8oz jigheads. MAN THEY WERE AGGRESSIVE! Almost every trout came to the top of the water thrashing and jumping. I LOVE TROUT FISHING! The new Berkley Crystal Fireline is definately producing good catches of trout (which can be the pickiest of all species) and we've had no break-offs like we would if we were fishing monofilament. Dudley's Marina (252-393-2204) is now stocking the Crystal Fireline.

10/8/06 Well, the weather didn't look the best today and my clients apparantly didn't feel like fishing so, with morning rain, thunder, and 20mph winds from the NNE I figured, "why don't I go fishing." So, Off I ran about 7:00am and fished alone until 11:00am when I got tired of fighting the wind. I found a bunch of speckled trout from 1.5 to 2lbs and kept 7 for myself to eat. Lots of bluefish mixed in and even boated a 2.5lb bluefish that went to tailwalking on a sand flat. Wasn't trying for reds today but did manage 2 23 to 24in reds while trout fishing. Pretty good morning on the water and found a load of live shrimp too. I TRULY LOVE THE CHANGE OF SEASONS AND THE VARIETY OF SALTWATER FISHING! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS- 910-326-7512 or jcronk@ec.rr.com

Sun. 10/1 This morning I had Doyle T. and his son aboard until 12:30. We started out scouring the shoals for some reds before heading out after flounder... well, the water was like choc. milk this morning near the shoals so after 30min. of looking and 1 nice redfish we decided to head off for the flatties. We made a few good runs with a flounder here or there and finally found a pod of fish and wound up landing 15 flounder with 12 keepers and left the fish biting as we head in... Also managed to toss a spec rig into a spanish macs mouth while flounder fishing.... the spanish are all over the place... try a 1/8oz. white, double spec rig on your trout rod next trip out and cast into the busting spanish for some great hookups and fights... Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE- 910-326-7512 or cell 336-558-5697

Sat. 9/30/06 What a morning.... I had Mike, Tony, and Ryan onboard with me for most of the morning before my afternoon trip... Whoa! We intended on catching a few grouper off some of our flounder ledges... but one electric mate quit and we broke off a dozen rigs on 35-40lb AJS with the drags tightened down for Grouper.... so, after about 10 big Amberjack and just a couple of Grouper with the largest at 12lbs
we switched over to flounder fishing and boated about 27 with 18 keepers from 1.5 to 3.5lbs and then moved on along the shoals to find about 500 to 1000 reds working hard... We spent about 1/2hr on them and caught 15 from 25 to 32in. and kept our 4 at 26.5 to 27in. We had them jumping out of the water, fighting over the topwater baits... even got some video! Awsome morning on the water and back out in the early afternoon for some more reds! Capt. Jeff Cronk- FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS 910-326-7512 or cell 336-558-5697 or email jcronk@ec.rr.com very few dates still open for 2006. Mike also has some open dates.. 252-725-2623