Your cart is empty
Start shopping to add items to your cart
Atlantic Croaker
OpenMicropogonias undulatus
The NC rulebook, translated for the Banks.
The Short Version
North Carolina puts no size floor on Atlantic Croaker; measure nothing, but count everything. The daily creel is 50 per person per day, and the fishery is open through the whole calendar year.
Keep Size
No minimum
Any size is legal to keep
Run the tape from the snout to the far edge of the tail pressed flat together — a pinched tail adds the half inch that decides a citation.
Daily Creel
50 per person per day
What one angler may take per day
Counts are per person unless the rule says "per boat," and they aggregate across everywhere you fished that day — sound, surf, and ocean all land in the same tally.
Season Window
Year-round
When harvest is legal
Open through the year unless an emergency closure posts.
Where It Stands
Open
Harvest is legal; emergency in-season shutdowns are rare but do happen — glance at the DMF proclamations page anyway.
Croaker in the Sounds
Croaker are a sound and surf fish on the Outer Banks — the Croatan and Roanoke sound water is the local croaker factory from late spring through summer, and they show in the surf and off the piers alongside spot. They are named for the drumming noise they make, and a school of them on the bottom is a steady rod-tip bite.
Like spot, croaker are abundant and generously limited, so they are dinner rather than a trophy. A two-hook bottom rig with shrimp or squid, fished in the sound or the surf, is the whole method.
The Fine Print
- •No size limit.
- •50 per person per day, the same generous creel as spot.
- •Sound and surf fishery; the Croatan and Roanoke sounds hold them through the summer.
- •Bottom-rigged shrimp or squid. Small hooks, and expect a steady bite when a school is under you.
Updated Oct 30, 2026