Coastal River Charters

The days are hot on the coast. Various sting rays can be spotted on most outings. Occasionally a ray can be seen jumping out of the water or crashing back to the surface. Unfortunately for cast netters and swimmers jellyfish are plentiful. August is likely the height of the jellyfish season. When surf fishing this time of year wear a shoe suitable for water and long pants! One remedy for jellyfish stings is Adolf’s meat tenderizer. A Savannah resident Chip Grayson with some assistant from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography has come out with a product to provide relief from jellyfish stings. The bad news is this product is not yet on the market. This will likely be a product that fishermen and swimmers on the coast during late summer will want to have on hand. Despite lots of particle matter in the water finding clean water has not very difficult. The drift, flow of water, has been poor most of the week. Conditions have been less that ideal. Nonetheless fishing has been good! Most the larger seatrout are a pound and half or better. Slow moving water while not ideal for seatrout is good for flounder fishing. Plenty of ladyfish. Most of the trout have been caught on Cajun Thunders rigs with about a 2 foot leaders. While fishing has not been fast and furious the bite has been good with steady action and quality fish. Chartreuse or another color? When pitching for seatrout chartreuse is usually a go to color. After many casts with a chartreuse fly produced nothing; the first cast with a gold/brown rattle shrimp produced a seatrout. Seatrout are keying on shrimp. Shrimp patterns and colors are hard to beat! A few shrimp patterns from Bass Assassin are new penny, native shrimp and red/gold shiner. Any of these patterns will catch fish particularly when shrimp are plentiful!

Nice size whiting are plentiful on the sandbars. If one spot isn’t producing look for different spot with a more current. Black tips large and small can found along sand spits. If shrimp and squid aren’t producing switch to fresh cut bait. Fishermen are complaining large schools of menhaden aren’t present in the sounds. This can vary day to day. At present small menhaden can be found in the rivers. Larger schools of bigger pogies are further out. Bait patterns vary year to year. If your day of fishing depends on finding menhaden always have a backup. Mullet, tomtates, pinfish and ladyfish can make an excellent tarpon/shark bait.

Some reports of triple tail along near shore structure. These fish are usually targeted when the current is slack or close to slack using float rigs and shrimp.

Tides for the remainder of this week are pretty small tides (less than 7 foot). Drift will likely be slow resulting in a slower bite and good flounder fishing. Capt. Wild Bill reports he starting to catch some young of the year redfish in the keeper range. Most are still around 12 inches but some have already keeper size. That said there’s not much meat on a small redfish. It’s always good to go light on your redfish take, opt for other fish. The main reasons are redfish are so much fun to catch and second it takes this fish several years to reach to sexual maturity.

Hope this of help! Good Fishing!

Capt. Jack McGowan

Summer is here! We’re in the dog days of summer. Hot humid days, afternoon popup thunderstorms can be typical. Ample amounts of rain last week while mudding water in short run should be a help to our fishery. Lots of small summer trout (12″ or so) showing on the sandbars. Capt. Wild Bill says it’s reputed that summer trout hit harder than seatrout. Maybe so we had plenty of hard hits with fish you knew had to be larger. Large amounts of rain in a short period of time can push bait and the predator fish out to saltier water. In a few tide cycles conditions returned normal as slit and mud particles settled and rain water dissipated. Wind and rain last week made conditions difficult to fish. When conditions are rough the only alternative is to fish lee shores. Pick the most likely spot and fish the water in front of you. Rough conditions limit choices. Pitching a plastic might sound a little difficult on a rough day but not so. Remember you’re fishing a lee shore. You’re out of wind or practically out of the wind. Pitching can change your presentation. Fish that were reluctant might bite. When wind and tide are opposing, working against each other the result can be a miserable drift. You’re fishing protected water and little if anything is happening. It likely there fish are there it’s a matter of getting them to bite. Seatrout are predator fish. Pitching a soft plastic might trigger bite that otherwise would be hard to generate. As conditions began to improve on Saturday and Sunday so did the bite. Action reported near the beach fronts with seatrout, redfish, whiting and flounder. Capt. Vern on Monday of this week caught some nice seatrout fishing close to the sound. Fish early to try an beat the heat! Bonnethead sharks are plentiful particularly where crabs shrimp and muddy bottoms are presents as well as along sandbars. If you associate bonnetheads with mud you wont go wrong.

Another sign of summer is ladyfish. This is fast aggressive fish that can provide lots of fun on light tackle. The present Georgia state record is only 5 pounds. There are plenty of fish out there that will exceed that number. When seatrout aren’t biting its likely ladyfish or bluefish will show up. Ladyfish seems to be a more impervious to summer heat. Seatrout will tend to bite best early or when conditions are cloudy. Ladyfish while not often kept for food can make excellent bait for tarpon and sharks. Ladyfish will take a variety of baits as well as artificials or a fly. For best action target areas with current and close to the sounds. The big eyes on ladyfish gives them excellent eye sight. Sometime its possible to catch this fish even in muddy conditions. Once you locate a school of ladyfish hold on! Anticipate frequent jumps, aggressive head shaking and strong fights. Some fishermen say catching a ladyfish is a sign of good luck to come! Ladyfish are in!

Hope of help! Good fishing! Capt. Jack McGowan