Craig J. Fried
I booked a full day guided fishing trip with Capt. Gary Dubiel for Striped Bass and Speckled Trout after reading many articles in the NC Sportsman magazine as well as some posted fishing reports online. I booked the trip for my 10 year old son, another Retired Marine friend of mine and I. From the first phone call to discuss booking the trip through the actual trip, everything was a pleasure. When I initially called, I spoke to Mrs. Dubiel (who is quite knowledgeable herself), I informed her that we were interested in booking the trip but that we wanted this to be more than just a “put us on the fish” trip. What we were looking for was some serious knowledge on the subject of Striper and Speck fishing in the Neuse and Trent rivers, so that we could both take our families out in our own boats and have an enjoyable day fishing for these targeted fish with confidence.

Well, the day finally came to meet Capt. Dubiel at the Lawson Creek Park boat ramp at 0630. He was right on time (15 minutes early), and quickly had the boat in the water and was giving us the day’s plan for how we were going to attack the fish. I would like to say that this day we had some of the worst weather conditions, West winds in excess of 20 mph just to name one. The Capt. was positive all day despite the conditions and worked very hard to keep the boat conditioned just right (as right could be) for us to present our lures just as instructed. All day long the Capt. was a plethora of fishing knowledge, from tying improved fishing knots, to lure selection, lure presentation, structure to seek out when targeting Stripers and Specks, you name it and he was covering it.

All in all, we ended up catching several fish but more importantly we learned years worth of knowledge in a little over eight hours. I would also like to point something else, the manner in which Capt. Dubiel worked with my son. He was extremely professional at all times, never any profanity, and on top of that when he was talking with my son, he was able to break down the information into information a fifth grader could easily understand. Because of this, my son was able to easily stay motivated all day. As a matter of fact, my son is still talking about fishing with Capt. Dubiel. If someone were to ask me if I would recommend fishing with Spec fever and Capt. Dubiel, I would tell them that I highly recommend it! Not only will you have fun catching fish, but you will learn all sorts of tips and tricks and more importantly, you will make a great friend.