Coastal River Charters

Summer is officially about start. This means long hot summer days, baseball and of course fishing! A summer favorite is flounder fishing! This Spring has already produced some good flounder fishing. As temperatures heat up the flounder bite should pick up as well. Fishermen in South Carolina and Georgia have said this has been one of the best year’s in recent memory for cobia. There have excellent reports from the Broad River in South as well off the Georgia coast. This is fish is on the move making it’s spawning run. Like most fishing timely is everything. Fishermen who fail to find these will usually salvage the day fishing for redfish. The seatrout bite is picking up with good fishermen boating nice messes of trout. Some fishermen will deliberately limit their take of seatrout during this time of the because most of fish are likely to be roe trout. A couple of veteran fisherman told me they kept two or three fish and released the rest. Releasing fish isn’t a bad idea. Seatrout are a delicate so handle with care.

The whiting bite is slowing up as sharks increase. Whiting are still working the sand bars just not as many as in early Spring. Brown shrimp are showing up the creeks. Emanuel, from River Supply, said he started catching small redfish. These are this year’s crop of redfish. These fish will grow rapidly as bait becomes more and more abundant. Commercial crabbers are saying having to throw back lots of small crabs. On the other hand we’re seeing crabs in the rivers definitely a good sign. Sure enough another sign of summer is the
arrival of tarpon. While in Cranmans, one Chuck King’s customers reported seeing tarpon. It’s that time of year!

Tides will be negative range heading into Memorial Day. Big tides usually mean difficult fishing. Tides will reach a height 8.7 on Wed. June 2nd.. Definitely a big tide but wind will likely be the determining factor. Many fishermen believe building tides mean a better bite (I’m one of them)!

Tip of the Week
You never know. You never exactly what’s on the end of your line. Of course you know the fish you’re targeting but part of the fun is the unexpected. Salt water fishing definitely has the unexpected This week we hooked in not one but two cobia while whiting and shark fishing. Don’t pass up the fun and joy of the unexpected whether large or small, it’s still fun! I’ve seen trout fisherman become discouraged when he caught a redfish and a person fishing for redfish pout when he caught a trout. Part of joy of saltwater is the variety and you never know. You might catch a spotted hake or pompano. One looks like a space creature; the other a tasty treat but never know.

Hope this of help! Good Fishing! Capt. Jack McGowan

Whenever there is delay in getting out a fishing report either fishing is real good or real poor. Fishing has been pretty good! During any given week a fisherman will likely see times of good fishing and times not so good fishing. Changes in the weather, pop up storms an increase in wind can make fishing difficult or even impossible for a while. The seatrout action by most accounts are off. Even Mr. Trout, Rupert Heller acknowledges the trout has been stronger. That being said Rupert caught 10 large roe in a strong southeast wind on Monday, pitching plastic from a boat that definitely is not an inshore boat. Ruperts reply seatrout are in the sounds! They the fish are going to move with the tide. Wait on ‘em keep pitching and you might catch ‘em. Pitching is fine but be prepared to be move if the fish aren’t biting.

Live and dead Bait
Live and dead bait can work. Some of the favorite baits are mud minnows, mullet, crabs, shrimp, squid and pogies. Live lining bait is almost impossible for a fish to resist. When live bait fails to produce a strike, It’s likely the fish either have lock jaw (they are not biting at this time) or they aren’t there. We’ll usually will fish an area first with bait then switch to artificial. On occasion I’ll have one fisherman pitching a plastic and the other on bait. When one method looks like it’s out producing the other we’ll switch. When possible covering water for tailing reds can be effective. Slowing move up or down a bank taking short casts close structure.

Anchoring up is hard to beat
With the chances to scattering fish and annoying fishermen often your best for success is to anchor up. Anchoring up is a tried and true technique. Pick a likely spot, one you likely fished before can caught fish, this is commonly referred to as a drop. A key to fishing a drop is the drift. Drift Is the flow of water. A drift that is not too fast and not too slow is usually the ideal. Moving water, a drift equals a food chain. This simply means when the water is moving you’re likely to catch more fish.

Big Fish moving in!
There have several reports of big fish in coastal waters. Reports seems indicate fishermen are having better year for cobia than the previous year. Capt. Brain has landed some jacks already. Sharks are numerous on the sandbars and schools of pogies are popping up.

Flounder Fishing
Flounder fishing will likely be in full swing by the end of May. Several fishermen have already taken some nice fish. The anticipation is that we’ll have another good flounder year! We caught two while fishing for redfish this week. Both were nice fish and destined for the cooler. Bait will be scare for the remainder of May. Mud minnows are a great for trout, bass and flounder. Capt. Ray caught two triple tail on the lowly mud minnow. It’s a good bait.

Tides look very gentle
Tides look very gentle going to the week end May 22nd. And 23rd. Wind could be a factor. If a prevailing southeast wind continues the incoming tide will likely produce a stronger bite. . A gentle out going tide held back by strong wind could mean not much of a drift and not much of a food chain. Best chances of success fish early in the morning if possible.

Good Fishing! Capt. Jack McGowan

A lot has happened since my last report. We’ve had several nice catches of red drum on light tackle with several fish 24 inches or better. We’ve caught fish on mud minnows, shrimp as well plastics. Sea trout action has been picking up. There have some catches reported of a dozen up to forty sea trout caught. Live shrimp is still the favorite bait but call ahead as of this writing only Bandy’s (at the foot of the Skidaway Bridge) and Adam’s (down the road from the Sea Ray Dealership on hwy 80) have been open. Don Adam’s has had shrimp from Florida. The shrimp supply will be improving as brown shrimp move into local waters towards the end of the month. Whiting are still biting but the bite is getting more sporadic as temperatures warm. Ample amounts of small sharks are following whiting can be found along sand bars. Manuel, from River Supply, said he’s catching some nice spanish off of Tybee pitching gotcha plugs. Seems pretty early for spanish. Spanish, blue fish, small sharks as well as other fish will follow the bait into the beaches. Small bait fish are already showing up. Should be likely that bigger fish wont to far behind.

Redfish
With the lack of shrimp in local waters redfish are keying on crabs, in particular fiddler crabs. This is a good time to look for tailing redfish! Look for small parts of a tail fin sticking out and you might be surprised at what you’ll see. Pitching a plastic that resemble a crab can definite work. My only hesitation is the bulkiness of some of these baits. A bulky is difficult to pitch into the wind. Sometimes a tailing redfish can be so preoccupied with sticking his nose in the mud that your plastic needs to land close to the fish as well as soft. We’ve done well pitching small floats such as the Low Country Lightings with shrimp or mud minnows. Low country lighting are sold by Chuck at Cranmans.

Low tides for the week are in the negative range. The afternoon high tide is building to 8.7 feet on Wednesday, not ideal. Nonetheless, winds and storms will be the determining factor for the week. Usually even under less than ideal conditions you’ll still be able to find some fish. Look for good fishing by the end of the week when tides falls to 8.3 feet on Friday. The tides for the rest of the month look fine.

Good Fishing! Capt. Jack McGowan