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

Well, this afternoon wasn't as successful as this morning. We found a school of about 20 or more redfish on the first stop but the wind was blowing about 20+ into our faces and it made it almost impossible to get a bait into the strike zone... We tossed some topwater baits into the school and had several blow-ups and finally hooked up and landed a fish about 24in.... nice fish! At this point the tide was so low these fish moved off into deeper water. We moved on and found several scattered pods of fish but just couldn't make it happen again. Slow afternoon and very windy. Maybe next time. Way to stick with it guys.

Still some June and July morning trips available... call asap... they're going fast!
Thanks,

Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
www.nccharterfishing.com
252-764-2174
336-558-5697

4/26 I left the dock this morning with Ralph Britt's group onboard as we headed into the backwaters. Within minutes of casting we found a pocket holding some small speckled trout. Ralph's son, James, was putting a hurting on us... he hooked up a 26in redfish followed by several speckled trout back to back. Ralph backed his son up with a nice 25in Redfish and a Spec... Shortly after, we all began hooking up with Specs. We quit around noon and wound up landing about 18 speckled trout, 6 reds, and 3 flounder. Great Job guys!

Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
www.nccharterfishing.com
252-764-2174
336-558-5697

Well, the weather wasn't the best this afernoon so my group and I decided to reschedule for later this week... and of course I can't stand sitting around the house when I know I'm supposed to be fishing so, I went scouting for a couple of hours. The tide was almost dead low, the sun was up (in between the clouds), and it was a little windy. I scoured a few bays near the inlets and found redfish in several of them. These fish were shallow... less than a foot of water and they were striking topwater baits and Berkley Jerk Baits fished on weightless hooks. I caught 3 from 24 to 26in. and had several more pull off before heading back to the dock.

Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
Fishing Swansboro, Emerald Isle, and all of the Crystal Coast
336-558-5697
252-764-2174

Well, first of all... sorry for no photos folks... camera is in limbo...
4/18 4hr afternoon trip - Well, we went out this afternoon looking for redfish and trout. First stop and we found a bunch of speckled trout but these weren't the bigger fish we've been catching lately. All of them were 12 to 15in. so after landing a handful we opted to move on and try and put Chris's group on some redfish. The second place we moved into we found a school of about 100 slot-sized redfish. We stayed and played with them for a while and then moved on and found some big fish. We had three monsters well over the slot hooked up on Topwater baits... great stuff... we're seeing a lot of reds moving in from the surf to the backwaters...

4/19 8hr Trip into the Neuse. Well, with Eric C. and his group aboard we went looking some bigger trout. Beautiful day... lots of boats about... but no one really catching too well. The bite happened right at daybreak for just a short while... then the winds picked up and made it difficult to fish those light baits... We had a slow day but managed to land 7 Speckled Trout with the largest at 2.75lbs along with 4 redfish, a nice 20in. Striper, 1 flounder, and a few Alligator Gars to test the tackle... great job guys!

Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS of Swansboro
jcronk@ec.rr.com
252-764-2174
336-558-5697

Hello everyone,
I have finally gotten my schedule for summer and am now booking morning and afternoon trips for both weekdays and weekends. I currently have plenty of open dates available but, as in the past, these dates will fill quickly. So, if you are planning for your vacation, etc. please call asap to reserve your fishing trip. I appreciate everyone's business in the past as this allows me to pursue my passion of fishing. This season you'll be stepping onboard a 2008 24ft Ranger Bay Boat equipped with 250HP Four Stroke Yamaha (quiet w/no smelly exhaust) equipped with a Powerpole and a Minnkota 101lb Auto-pilot/Co-pilot trolling motor for backwater redfishing, two 520C Lowrance color split GPS/Fishfinding Units, and top of the line rods, reels, and tackle.
-Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
336-558-5697
252-764-2174
jcronk@ec.rr.com
www.nccharterfishing.com

Dion Lynn is teasing us with some photos of the big Flounder we caught a couple days ago... he is apparantly a gourmet chef on the side.... here is his Crab stuffed flounder with a white wine and shrimp sauce served over
white rice.

Congrats to Tom Ridgeway as he hooked and landed a 5 lb. 12oz. Speckled Trout today despite the 30mph blow! Tom along with his father and son hopped onboard FISH'N4LIFE with me this morning hoping for a big trout or some reds... well, the wind was a pain in the Arse... but these boys stuck it out for a few hours and put a couple of nice Speckled Trout in the boat. We also made a pitstop to add some Sea-Mullet to the cooler... Great Job Guys and congrats on your citation trout Tom! Those big trout really smoke a line in a couple feet of water!!!
-Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174
336-558-5697
JCRONK@EC.RR.COM

Well, with my father onboard for his second day back here in the boro... we decided to take advantage of the short window of calm weather the forecasters got right. Despite the dense fog that lasted through noon, Dad, my friend Dion, and myself slid out Bogue Inlet and enjoyed some great bottom jigging. It's pretty freaky finding yourself 5 to 10 miles offshore in a fog so dense it looks as though you can spit and lose track of it... One good thing for sure, no one... absolutely no one... knew what we were catching or where we were fishing! Being the first day off the beach this season, I basically scoured a 40 mile area... spot checking each for bottomfish. We picked away a few fish here and there and then about 11:00am we found the mother load! We found a large area holding Seabass so thick they were rising the the surface around the boat each time we retreived our lines. This school of Seabass was marking 30ft thick. We picked away and landed almost 400 Seabass with most over 10 in.... We threw back a lot of fish that were exactly 12in. knowing they will shrink about an 1/8in. once they die... We kept 31 Seabass from 12 1/4in. to 15in. and were also lucky enough to land 5 Summer Flounder with the largest right at 5 lbs. Dion landed several nice grouper just under the 24in slot. They were released unharmed to grow a little. A couple sharks and ringtails to top it off and we had a great day on the ocean with seas under 2ft. We were also fortunate enough to see our 1st Sunfish for the 2008 season... we managed to get within 15ft of him before he went down...
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174
jcronk@ec.rr.com

Wed. 4/9
My father came in town and Wed. afternoon we managed to get a few hours on the water to look for some Trout. It wasn't the best trout bite in the world but we picked away and between 3pm and 6pm we managed to land 13 Speckled Trout from 1 lb. to 4.6lbs using Berkley Gulp Alive baits and Corky's. The Bluefish have really moved inshore as well. We had a bunch of bluefish strikes and landed 5 from 1 to 1.5 lbs. Don't be mistaken, bluefish are great eating if you bleed them while they are still alive... Great work Dad!
Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
252-764-2174
336-558-5697
JCRONK@EC.RR.COM

................................IFA Charleston Redfish Tournament - April 5th 2008
TEAM NCCHARTERFISHING (Capt. Jeff Cronk and Capt. Mike Taylor)

1st Place Ranger Cup Winners
3rd Place Main Event 2 fish Aggregate 7.94
3rd Place TWT Aggregate


Capt. Mike Taylor and Myself, Capt. Jeff Cronk would like to thank all of our Sponsors and advertisers for their support as the 2008 Tournament Season kicks off. Thanks goes out to Ron Enslen/Ranger Boats, Les Collins/Collin's Inc., Tim H./Yamaha Outboards, Dan Vinent/Berkley and Purefishing, Chris Ulmer/graphics by Sign Language, John Willard/Dudley's Marina, John S./Stevenson Chevrolet, Jack S./SeaLake Maps, Dion Lynn/Carolina Furniture Co., Tommy/AB Surf Shop.

Well, first of all I apologize if I have missed any calls from clients and friends over this past week. We've been down in Charleston trying to learn waters we've never fished.... and a lot of water they've got! The Charleston area has a lot of 25 to 35in. fish but the smaller slot sized fish (15 - 23in.)can be hard to come by. After several days of locating fish and patterning them... the tournament day arrived and the weather completely switched with a forecast including a Marine Smallcraft Advisory and winds up to 30mph accompanied by approaching Thunderstorms, etc. It wasn't looking good for the anglers. Regardless of the rough, wide open waters and 3ft chop in the rivers, Mike and I made a comfortable and quiet 25mile run in the new 2400 Ranger Bay with its Yamaha 250 fourstroke. We caught our first upper slot redfish of 22 1/2 in. about 9:10am on a flooded grass flat using a Berkley Powerbait Shrimp(Pearl) rigged semi-weedless on a weightless hook. Several days prior, the reds were tailing all over this grass flat and were very easy targets. The wind and the upper end of the flood tide had them hidden but we knew they were there and continued blind casting to less dense patches of grass over the first couple hours of fishing hoping for a couple bites... and that's what we got... two bites one of which was our 22 1/2in fish. The tide then began falling and the flat we were on would soon be out of water, so we moved on to set up for our falling tide holes. Over the next couple hours, with winds at 20 to 30mph, we were fortunate enough to land 2 more slot reds and an 11lb monster. One of those reds was just under 22in. and struck a Berkley Gulp Alive 4in Shrimp fished on a 3/16oz Gamagatsu Jighead. We fished a little longer and knowing we had a strong weight for such a bad weather day, we decided to head back to the dock early to allow for bad weather travel. Thanks to the IFA and all its partners for hosting such an organized event. Everyone we met, both fishermen and IFA staff, were helpful and friendly. The commradery reminds me of our local events here in NC. We look forward to being a part of the IFA redfish tournament coming to SurfCity, NC later this summer. If I can assist anglers with names of good accomodations in the Swansboro area just shoot me an email at jcronk@ec.rr.com or a phone call at 336-558-5697.
-Capt. Jeff Cronk
FISH'N4LIFE CHARTERS
Team NCCHARTERFISHING.COM