We have been staying OF in Frisco for a week mid July for about 10 yrs. This year I noticed long liners setting lines at least 3 days of our stay. I think it was Thursday that they actually soaked all night. Since the are dropping just past the outer bar, my son and I are curious as to what they are catching. Before we stopped bringing our surf gear all we ever caught were spots, pompano or very small blues. Inshore charter blues and spanish, so what is out there to warrant all night running.

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I have never noticed any long liners off Hatteras. Are you certain they weren't gill net drift lines? I know they catch plenty of blues and spanish to provide for the Hatteras VFD fish fry.

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Long liners work far off the beach, out of eye sight in deep water. What you are seeing are netters setting for blues or more likely spanish mackeral at this time of year.

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Thank you both for the answers; certainly explains their presence esp all night

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Thank you both for the answers; certainly explains their presence esp all night

Come on down in the fall. The shrimp boats are lit up all night as they collect greentails (white shrimp). They come in so close to shore you can see the people on deck.

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I used to vacation in the fall before the grandkids started school, sure miss those times
Also spent '75-'77 at Camp LeJeune with the Navy Dental Corp. One of the techs in our clinic had some sort of family connection with the Sneads Ferry shrimpers, always knew when the boats were working. They would actually work up in the Onslow Bay, when they did you could sein them along the shore.

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Correct about the folks setting nets. Long lining is more for big fish- a very long line with lots of hooks on it and is much farther out. The nets put fish on the plates in the seafood restaurants, and food on the tables of the guys who do it. Mentioning shrimping, I grew up right on the water in Carteret County and one of my vivid memories was going to sleep to the hum of the shrimp trawlers.

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I have never noticed any long liners off Hatteras. Are you certain they weren't gill net drift lines? I know they catch plenty of blues and spanish to provide for the Hatteras VFD fish fry.

Yep, it’s very prominent in NE waters for swordfish. Def blue water stuff. And dangerous vocation. BIL was a longliner out of New Bedford. His boat was just about the last one in before the Halloween Storm that took the Andrea Gail. He changed careers shortly there after.

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