Fishing — what's biting, what's peaking and what you may keep

The Fishing screen (Nature tab → Fishing) has three parts that are deliberately never blended: What’s biting — yesterday’s catch off the Sunset Beach Fishing Pier, from the pier’s own morning report; a curated seasonal almanac of the twelve fish worth naming from this strand, shown as Peaking this month, Starting next month and Everything worth casting at; and Before you keep one — North Carolina’s recreational size and bag limits, read by hand off the proclamations that set them, with a date stamp and a live check for newer proclamations. A fish being caught is an observation, a fish peaking is an almanac, and a size limit is the law; where they disagree, the screen shows both.

What’s biting

The pier posts a short report at around half past five every morning — tides, the day’s forecast, the water temperature off the end of the pier, and a line reading “yesterday’s catch”. The section shows:

The catch list, for example Whiting · Spanish · Croaker, captioned “Caught <date>, reported the next morning” — the report posted this morning describes fishing that has already happened, so the catch date is the day before the post.
Water at the pier — the temperature measured at the end of the pier, which is more local than any other water temperature in the app.
A warning for every fish on the pier’s list that is closed to possession right now: “Southern flounder is on the pier’s list, and it’s illegal to keep one right now. The season opens <date>.” This pairing is the most useful thing on the screen — flounder are caught here all summer and the season is a fortnight long.
The pier’s report — a link that opens the pier’s blog in your browser.
The date of the catch in the section header, and a footer: “The pier posts its report each morning and the catch it lists is the day before. One pier, one day, and a fish being caught says nothing about whether you may keep it.”

The pier shuts for the winter and the reports stop with it. When the newest report is more than 10 days old the section adds “The pier is shut for the winter, so this is the last report of the season rather than yesterday’s.” and keeps showing the last report with its real date on it — a gap over the winter is the season, not a fault. If the report cannot be read at all you see “The pier’s daily report couldn’t be read, so nothing here is live — the seasons below are an almanac.”

It is one pier: a fish that isn’t on the list wasn’t necessarily absent from the surf a mile west, only unreported. The same catch line also appears as the Fishing row on the Nature tab, and any fish that is biting but closed is pulled forward there too.

Peaking this month, Starting next month, Everything worth casting at

The almanac covers twelve species: Whiting (sea mullet), Florida pompano, Bluefish, Spot, Atlantic croaker, Red drum, Black drum, Spotted seatrout, Southern flounder, Sheepshead, Spanish mackerel and King mackerel — the pier’s own catch vocabulary plus the inlet species people walk to Tubbs Inlet for.

Peaking in <month> lists the species whose peak months include the current month. It is absent when nothing peaks.
Starting next month lists species not peaking now whose peak includes next month.
Everything worth casting at lists all twelve. Its footer names anything the pier reported that isn’t one of the twelve: “The pier also reported: …”

Each row shows the fish’s name, a green caught tag when it is on the pier’s most recent list, a red closed tag when it cannot legally be kept right now, and a subtitle with where to fish for it (surf, pier, inlet, just offshore), the size limit and the bag limit — or “no state size or bag limit” for whiting and pompano, which the state’s table does not cover at all.

Tap a fish for its detail: When (the season in words), What works (bait and rig), Worth knowing, Where; What you may keep — the size (with how it is measured: “total length, snout to tail tip” or “to the fork of the tail, not the tip”), the bag limit, any detail, a Read from row naming the proclamation the numbers came from, and a warning when a proclamation naming this fish was issued after the numbers were last checked; Proclamations in force — each opens as a PDF from the Division of Marine Fisheries; and About this fish with the scientific name, other names and a twelve-box Peak months strip.

Peak months are curated from published natural history for this coast, not derived from any dataset of records. A peak is a peak, not a fence — nothing here claims a fish is absent out of season, and the almanac never overrides the pier’s report. Whiting peak in spring and again in autumn and are still on the list most summer mornings.

Before you keep one

North Carolina sets recreational limits by proclamation, and proclamations change mid-season. The state publishes a summary table of size and bag limits, which is the obvious thing to copy and the wrong thing to trust: when the numbers in the app were checked, that table was out of date in two places at once (it said flounder was closed with no season, although the 2026 season had already been set for 1–14 September by a proclamation issued 3 June; its bluefish footnote said three fish a day while its own table cell said five — the proclamation says five).

So every number in the app is read by hand off the proclamation that actually sets it, and the section shows:

The caveat: “Limits in North Carolina are set by proclamation and change mid-season — the state’s own summary table was out of date on flounder and bluefish when these were checked. Treat these as a prompt to look, not as the law. Verify before you keep a fish.”
Four links: Recreational size and bag limits (the state’s table), Proclamations in effect, Fish Rules — limits by where you are standing, and The pier’s daily report.
A footer stating the vintage: “Limits read off the governing proclamations on <date>. The state’s own summary table is stamped <date>. N proclamations in force name these fish.”

The list of proclamations in force is fetched live so the app can tell you when a newer one naming a fish has landed since the numbers were read — the only condition under which they might be wrong. If that list could not be fetched the section says so: “The list of proclamations in force couldn’t be read this time, so nothing here has been checked against it.”

Southern flounder is the sharp case: the 2026 recreational season is 1–14 September, one fish per person per day, minimum 15 inches total length, and outside that window possession is unlawful. Because the window is set each year by proclamation the app treats flounder as high proclamation risk, and its detail screen says so.

Next steps

The Nature tab Where the Fishing screen lives, alongside sightings, turtles, birds and the map.

Where every number comes from The pier's report feed and the NC DMF proclamation list, with how often each is refreshed.

Limits and what it doesn't know Fishing limits are read by hand and stamped; the pier report is one pier, one day.