Today I carried the Autry brothers, Johnny and William, and their friend Jason on a mixed bag trip on the Pungo and Pamlico. Fishing was slow, and we covered a very large area looking for schools of trout, drum, flounder, and rockfish. We ended up with four undersized trout, an undersized flounder, and a keeper striper. The cow-nosed rays have invaded this area a little early this year and to quote a friend, they arrive like a “biblical plague” for about a month. They push up into the creeks and onto the flats where most of our targeted species typically feed. They churn the water up, making it very milky and murky colored and drive the fish off. Right now they are all in the Pungo and around the Pamlico Point area and should continue to head west toward Bath and Washington over the next week or two. If you see them, get away from them because you won’t catch many fish around them. Maybe I need to take some bowfishermen??