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Byline: PAT DAMICO Little tunny or false albacore are hammering large schools of baitfish close to shore along our coast. Most action is close to passes and channels where tidal [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO Tides, weather, water temperature and wind are all variables that affect where fish will be and their willingness to strike your fly. Drifting the flats is a [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO If early morning trips have not been productive, weak tides may be the reason. After checking weather, head out to some of your usually productive shallow water [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO Water temperatures in the 70s were a pleasant surprise during recent fly fishing river trips. Redfish, ladyfish, trout, snook, largemouth bass and a few baby tarpon were [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO What's hot: There are several places you can catch fish with a fly rod because of favorable water temperatures. Lakes and ponds are teeming with varieties of [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO What's hot: Cooler water temperatures have some popular species changing feeding activity as well as locations. During a fly-fishing trip to a river that empties into Tampa [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO What's hot: Shallow water fishing for trout, reds and snook continues to accelerate as our area waters cool. Daily late afternoon thunderstorms are diminishing, and evening fishing [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO Tactics: Accompanying the lower air and water temperatures, northerly winds and recent tides have reduced available water to fish. Instead of putting your tackle away, take advantage [...]

Byline: PAT DAMICO What's hot:Rivers are starting to heat up. A recent charter had two clients who had done some 'urban' fishing with me and wanted to get away from [...]

RALEIGH -- Responding to fears that foot-and-mouth disease could sweep through North Carolina and decimate the state's livestock industry and economy, the state House and Senate passed slightly different bills [...]

RALEIGH -- Gov. Mike Easley stressed in his inaugural speech the need for 'One North Carolina,' but a proposal by state officials to eliminate money for distance-learning courses on the [...]

In a move that could affect whether mentally retarded people can be executed in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a final appeal for a [...]

RALEIGH -- Twelve- and 13-year-olds could no longer tie the knot in North Carolina under a host of marriage-law reforms backed by a House judiciary committee yesterday. And 14- and [...]

RALEIGH -- Ten municipalities - including Concord, Hickory and Newton - could join 13 other North Carolina cities authorized to post automated cameras at busy intersections to catch drivers running [...]

RALEIGH -- Three days before the U.S. Supreme Court considers a last-ditch appeal by a Concord man on death row who attorneys say has the mind of a child, legislators [...]

RALEIGH -- Largely unchanged for 100 years, North Carolina's marriage laws are alternately criticized as screwy, old-fashioned and in some cases unconstitutional. Marriages performed by Hindu, Muslim and Islamic religious [...]

RALEIGH -- The N.C. Board of Transportation, meeting for the first time since the 19 members were sworn in Thursday, approved financing for several safety projects in the Piedmont and [...]

RALEIGH -- School boards would be barred from entering exclusive contracts with soft-drink companies until after the state studies the health effects of the drinks on students, under legislation filed [...]

RALEIGH -- Saying that High Point cannot afford to lose the lucrative international furniture market, the state House tentatively approved a bill yesterday to allow the city to levy separate [...]

RALEIGH -- Four of the 14 people selected to represent regional areas on the N.C. Board of Transportation - together with their families - gave more money to Gov. Mike [...]

RALEIGH -- Saying that municipal election boards pose a political conflict of interest, the state Senate tentatively endorsed an effort yesterday to abolish the boards and require county elections officials [...]

RALEIGH -- Heralding it as a coin that celebrates an event that 'changed the world and the lives of its inhabitants forever,' the U.S. Mint unveiled a quarter yesterday that [...]

RALEIGH -- Attorneys for Willie Fisher, 39, say that a toxic mix of cocaine, malt liquor, beer and wine drove Fisher to act wildly out of character on the night [...]

RALEIGH -- Small and red and a little bit strange, strawberries grow on more than 1,800 acres throughout North Carolina from the Coastal Plains to the Piedmont. The state's farmers [...]

RALEIGH -- If Ernest McCarver is executed Friday, it will be like killing a child, his attorneys and mental-health advocates say. During clemency hearings yesterday, McCarver's supporters told Gov. Mike [...]

RALEIGH -- The N.C. Supreme Court yesterday lifted the stay of execution for Ernest McCarver, 40, who defense attorneys say is mentally retarded, saying that the last-minute reprieve given by [...]

PITTSBORO -- Citing pending legislation in the General Assembly to ban the death penalty for the mentally retarded, a Superior Court judge ordered a stay of execution yesterday for a [...]

RALEIGH -- Saying that no civilized country should execute the mentally retarded, psychologists and mental-health advocates called on Gov. Mike Easley yesterday to stay the execution of a 40-year-old man [...]

RALEIGH -- Saying that the state's health plan is hurtling toward financial crisis, the executive administrator of the plan told legislators yesterday that he intends to cut reimbursements to doctors [...]

RALEIGH -- A Senate insurance committee passed a proposal yesterday that could help bar an HMO from dropping health-insurance coverage for about 11,000 teachers and state employees across the state. [...]

RALEIGH -- In his first State of the State speech, Gov. Mike Easley told members of the General Assembly last night what no other governor has ever told them: That [...]

RALEIGH -- A bipartisan group of legislators made its annual pitch yesterday for state officials to funnel more money to poor school districts, saying that North Carolina shouldn't put off [...]

RALEIGH -- Saying that it is time to fix America's failing schools, Education Secretary Rod Paige called for annual testing for students, accountability programs and allowing students in poor-performing schools [...]

RALEIGH -- Gov. Mike Easley may use emergency budget powers to tap state reserves and plug a gap in the state budget that new projections show may exceed $740 million. [...]

RALEIGH -- As director of CenterPoint Human Services in Winston-Salem, one of the state's 39 regional mental-health programs, Ron Morton is keeping a watchful eye on a proposal to revamp [...]

RALEIGH -- A proposal to replace area mental-health programs with more-localized programs could cost too much money and hurt the people who need the most help, legislators and mental-health advocates [...]

RALEIGH -- The head of the state's largest electric co-op says that legislators can't afford to delay efforts to deal with the $5.4 billion debt held by 51 North Carolina [...]

The former president of the N.C. Pork Council joined Gov. Mike Easley yesterday in expressing support for extending a moratorium on new hog farms until state officials identify a different [...]

Supporters of efforts to create new towns out of two Western North Carolina communities crossed one more hurdle yesterday. Millers Creek in Wilkes County and Slanting Bridge in Catawba County [...]

A Winston-Salem engineering firm with experience in environmental projects has been selected to oversee the state's search for a cleaner, safer way to treat hog waste. Cavanaugh & Associates Inc., [...]

Despite recent efforts to close the racial achievement gap between students, a report released yesterday showed that black, Hispanic and American Indian students continue to lag behind their white classmates. [...]

Death-penalty opponents plan to ask Gov. Mike Easley to commute the death sentence of an inmate when Easley considers his first clemency petition next week. Easley should stay the execution [...]

RALEIGH -- The leaders of North Carolina did more than just pass the torch from one generation to the next yesterday. Some of them very literally traded hats. Outgoing Agriculture [...]

It is up to the N.C. Senate, not the courts, to decide whether the Democrat who won the election in the 23rd District is qualified to hold office, a Wake [...]

Members of a legislative panel studying whether to open North Carolina's power industry to competition said yesterday that they plan to delay for at least a year legislation that would [...]

Amid growing scrutiny of the death penalty nationwide, a legislative panel reaffirmed its support yesterday for a temporary ban on executions and endorsed a plan that would give legislators two [...]

Motorists could pay more to register their cars, renew their driver's licenses, fill up at the gas pump and buy cars under a proposal made yesterday by a legislative panel [...]

Legislators studying North Carolina's transportation spending will meet today to tackle an enormous task: how to overcome a multimillion-dollar backlog of maintenance and resurfacing needs in an uncomfortably tight budget [...]