Surf anglers from virtually all over the world sit up and take notice when they hear the words, “Cape Hatteras is hot this fall.” The words tell fishermen that not only is the weather warm but the fish are biting on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Even more specifically, the fishing is good at Cape Hatteras’s Cape Point.

Surf fishermen who have fished from the Cape Point in the past know that the fishing there is usually a “hit or miss” proposition. There are many factors in play when it comes to fishing at the point of Cape Hatteras. Probably the biggest factor that governs the fishing at this world-famous fishing spot is the weather. In second place is the availability of the hungry fish that can congregate in the unique waters off the Cape Point.

The Cape Point is a point of land on Hatteras Island that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. Points of land aren’t usually very unique but this particular point’s location is special. For several miles off the end of the point extends the notorious Diamond Shoals (the Graveyard of the Atlantic). Off these shoals, the northerly flowing warm waters of the Gulf Stream collide with the southerly flowing waters of the Labrador Current. This “meeting of the waters” on the Diamond Shoals creates a very unique ecosystem that sometimes lends itself to a gathering of hungry fish which, it turn, results in an often large number of thrill-seeking anglers.

If this sounds like the fishing off the Cape Point is a sure thing for catching a lot of fish, it isn’t. I don’t know of any surf fishing anywhere that can call itself a “sure thing” and the Cape Hatteras surf fishing is very far from being a sure thing. The many “ifs” and “mays” can result in a lot of angling time being spent relaxing in a comfortable chair on the beach, watching the sea gulls and soaking baited hooks that never seem to attract hungry fish. It’s that chance that you may be lucky enough to have chosen your Hatteras Island, Cape Point fishing trip to coincide with a feeding binge on the part of the fish.

Experienced Hatteras surf fishermen often say, “If you hit the Cape Point right on one out of three days, you’re lucky. It’s that one hot day that makes the long wait worth it.”

At least, that’s the way it used to be. It used to be that the only problems the surf fishermen had with the fishing at Hatteras has to do with the water and the fish. If the Cape Point proper was showing the anglers the kind of surf fishing that they dreamed of, it could be crowded, particularly if the bluefish were blitzing. There were tangled lines and minor fistfights could happen if some individual felt that another fisherman was infringing on his personal area. That was just a part of fishing at Cape Point when the blitz was on. When things would eventually calm down a little, the fishermen would laugh about these encounters and would again become a part of the angling community.

Those were the good old days. Thanks to the ever increasing size of our federal government and its enthusiasm to preserve (as opposed to conserve) the environment, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore has had some confrontations with the fishermen who like to surf fish and hunt on our Outer Banks.

Whereas access to the beaches at Cape Hatteras used to be a simple matter of getting a permit to drive on the beaches and to the Cape Point, it is no more. It seems like our U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Park Service (NPS) value such birds as the piping plover and the sea turtles more than the citizens who pay their salaries. Sea turtles and piping plovers may seem like wonderful beings to many people but to the surf fishermen who love Cape Hatteras and to most of the natives of the island, these endangered species aren’t on their “like” list.

The restrictions placed on four-wheel drive surf fishing vehicles and motoring out to the point are driving anglers away from Hatteras Island. When some environmentalists start talking about the piping plover around many of the local residents of Hatteras, well, be prepared for a fight. The Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) folks aren’t well liked by many outdoorsmen or locals.

When a hurricane’s water surge cuts through the island from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pamlico Sound, the newly formed inlet also cuts the roads and the water lines to Hatteras. The N.C. Highway Department usually repairs the damage pretty quickly, but when the USFWS and CHNS stop or delay the repairs because of the possible damage to the habitat of the piping plover, the local residents get pretty mad. These endangered birds had cut off their one road to the rest of the world and their supply of portable water.

In spite of these temporary hindrances to the way of life for the visitors to the island and to the local residents, everything goes on as usual on Hatteras Island.

One of many instances of just how the CHNS has irritated anglers occurred some years ago when two dedicated surf fishermen had to attend to a call of nature. They left the somewhat crowded area and drove a good ways up the beach to where nobody was around. They stopped their car and discretely stood behind the door to look after the call of nature. As they started to leave, an approaching CHNS ranger’s car came after them with blue lights blazing. The Park Ranger gave the two men each a ticket for “unauthorized disposition of human waste on a public beach.”

There were no Porta-Potties for miles from where this incident occurred and there were no other people seen in the area, yet the judge (it was a federal offense) found the two men “guilty as charged.” His parting words to the two “criminals” were, “If you’d have done your business in the edge of the Atlantic Ocean then you’d have been O.K. but to do it on the sand of the beach, that’s not O.K.”

It was a relatively small fine and the two men managed to keep their good jobs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but they now had a criminal record.

Thanks to the National Seashore Parks these islands we call the Outer Banks are to be forever relatively undeveloped as natural seashore areas. Most of us appreciate this and would like to have these islands remain accessible to us humans for many years. We appreciate the wildlife and environment, but sometime feel that our federal government places the well being of certain endangered species above that of our citizens. After all, we have rights, too.

We’ll continue to put up with the government stepping on our rights in order to preserve (as opposed to conserve) and keep these islands natural. We’d just like to see our rights as humans have a more important role in these environmental movements. As a matter of a fact, Kathleen Marquardt said it pretty well when she formed the Putting People First conservation organization some years ago. We humans have rights, too.

We’ll continue to visit the Outer Banks and we’ll continue to hunt and fish on these National Seashores. They’re a national treasure to us humans and, as humans, we feel that our rights to use these areas trump the rights of some of these endangered plants and animals.

The surf fishing reports from Hatteras Island from last week said the weather was lousy, the fishing was lousy and we’d have been better off to have stayed at home. On the other hand, I’d rather be fishing on a rainy day than sitting at home and wishing that I were down here shooting the breeze with my buddies over a cold one.

There’s no such thing as a bad day fishing.