It's freezing on the end of Avon Fishing Pier. A half-dozen men, bundled in layers of thick clothing, stand in a loose group watching over a row of 12-foot-long fishing rods.

Suddenly, the line-out alarm on one of the reels begins to scream as line is pulled from the spool. One of the men snatches the rod off the rail and runs backward while jerking the rod tip with short pumps.

On the third pump, the line goes tight and the rod bends over like a tree branch. The reel continues to whine as it gives up line to the running fish.

Back and forth, the fish and the fishermen trade blows until the fish gives up and surfaces 20 yards off the end of the pier.

One of the men announces that the fish is a red drum.

"Big one," he says and congratulates the angler, who is among the thousands of anglers who will catch and release thousands of big red drum along the Outer Banks this winter. This day's pier anglers and other hearty souls will stake out piers and beaches in the worst weather, enduring strong winds and cold water just to catch fish that they, for the most part, cannot keep.

Two of the other men lower a net the size of a hula-hoop into the water. They scoop up the fish and lift it over the side of the pier. Then, the fishermen work together to lay the 4-foot long bronze-and-gold drum on the planks. The angler carefully unhooks the fish, then lifts it off the deck and carries it back to the edge of the pier.

This fish is not destined for the frying pan, because big red drum are protected by law. The angler tips his prize over the side and lets it drop into the ocean. The fish gives a slow hard kick and disappears into the brown swirling water.

Why spend the time and the money and endure the misery of winter drum fishing only to let the prized fish go?

"It's the fight," said Jimmy Hillsman, a red drum fanatic who helps run the OBX Fishing School on Hatteras Island.

Speaking by phone from his Nags Head home, Hillsman said no other fish offers anglers the opportunity to duke it out with a heavyweight from the shore.

"I think they fight harder from the beach," he said.

The species' refusal to give up generates universal fascination among drum nuts, including Rob Alderman of Buxton.

"That fish has nothing but fight in him," he said.

Alderman, who is host of the "Outer Banks Angler" television show and moderator of the Hatteras Island Fishing Militia Web site's online forums (http://fishmilitia.com/), also is drawn to the sport by the social aspect of the pursuit for big reds.

"There's a good vibe on the beach," he said. "It's friendly and energetic but serious at the same time."

The fishermen who fish for drum "are a dedicated group of anglers," said Frank Folb of Frank and Fran's Fisherman's Friend bait and tackle shop, one of the island's biggest surf-fishing outfitters.

The core members of the drum fishing community are a tight-knit group, he said.

"They are very secretive, but they communicate amongst themselves to find the fish and get bait," Folb said.

Folb knows plenty of drum fishermen -- more than 350 show up each October for his annual red drum tournament.

"When the weather's right, it's not unusual for them to spend 18, 24, even 36 hours on the beach fishing," Folb said.

There is a bit of a drawback to such intense dedication by anglers, though.

"They stink when they come into the shop," Folb said.

Weather or not

The right weather conditions for drum fishing are often the worst weather conditions for any other type of fishing.

"When you're on the pier," Hillsman said, "you want a northeast wind blowing at 20 to 25 knots."

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