Coastal River Charters

Fishing is good! Spring winds have abetted and tides are good! With warming conditions and good weather fishermen in recent days have had good catches of seatrout, summer trout, whiting and redfish! Fishermen who were moaning the lack of seatrout are now saying the numbers look good! This great news! Seatrout are very prolific fish and given a chance can repopulate quickly. This appears to be what’s happening. Nature is filling in. An over abundance of bait means more fish. Not only are seatrout reappearing these fish are fat and healthy. That said, it always a good to go light on taking big female roe laden trout. One big roe laden seatrout could potentially produce thousands of fish. The numbers are looking good! And with a little luck seatrout fishing on the coast will continue to improve! Fishermen are catching more summer trout, not to be confused with seatrout. Summer trout are easily recognized by their lack spots. In the regulation booklet this is listed as weakfish and the limit is 1 with a TL of 13 inches.

The whiting bite has been strong with water temperature flittering in low 70’s the big push of summer time toothy fish have yet to arrive. A few sharks have shown up. The bulk are bonnet heads and few sharp nose sharks. The redfish bite at times has been good but lately a little up and down. Shrimp, likely the most popular bait on the coast is still available. Don Adams, Adams Bait House is finding medium sized white in good numbers! Finding shrimp around Savannah this time of the year is not a given but so far Don has been able to find them, thanks in part to lot of hard work and a very mild winter.

There has been some cobia action in shipping channel and in the Broad River. The Broad River a considerable boat ride from Savannah is credited with the largest river run of cobia on the east coast. The bottom line cobia are starting to show up!

Tides will be spring once again as we head into the weekend. Likely the best days this week will be prior to the weekend. When tides are springing often your best chance of success will be at the change of the tide. If you’re fishing a point on high incoming and its cover with bonnet heads don’t anticipate a trout bite.

Hope this of interest and help! Fish On!

Capt. Jack McGowan

The bite is interesting! Wind is definitely a big factor. Lots of days the forecast is wind in the five to ten mile range. What we are finding is likely in the 15 mile per hour range. This doesn’t sound that significant but it can crucial when it to comes to fishing. Couple this with an early Spring and you have some interesting dynamics. On the flip side there is plenty of bait and the sea trout are rebounding nicely! Sea trout action is wide spread but the best action is towards the sounds and not particularly deep or shallow. Jigs are effective as well as live baits. It is possible to find good redfish action fishing structure. When tides and conditions set up its possible to find a good bite. More fishermen are catching a one here, one there.

Whiting action is still good but water is now consistently over 70 degrees and the bonnet head sharks are rolling in big numbers. As sharks and rays get thicker it will harder to stay on a whiting or trout bite. A big bonnet head pulls about as hard anything you’ll likely hook into on the inside. Although a shark’s eye sight is poor this would be one strong pull on a fly!

Some flounder are being caught. One fisherman caught five but the better flounder fishing is yet to come.

Tides for the coming week look good! Smaller tides will mean less debris and slit in the water. When there is unable weather patterns to the west of us anticipate winds to greater than the forecast. Most of the fish are in the mid reaches to sound. One you pattern the fish, fishing can be good. This Spring has not followed the typical Spring pattern. Like many places Spring is early. There is plenty of bait. Small 13 trout are fat and heavy and it looks like a much better year for sea trout.

Once you pattern the fish, fishing is good!

Hope this of interest and help! Keep what you want to eat and release the rest!

Fish On! Capt. Jack McGowan

The inshore bite is picking up! Water temperatures are already in the mid to upper 60’s. We have even seen few bonnet head and sharp nose sharks. Some seatrout already are laden with roe! My most accounts seatrout will spawn on the beachfronts from May through August. Seeing seatrout laden with roe is good sign! Also there are reports of fishermen catching lots of small seatrout. Seeing some seatrout action is a good sign and bodes well! We’ve catching some seatrout as many large as small.

Most of bite in the sounds is with the ubiquitous whiting. This small fishermen friendly fish that that will readily take a wide variety of cut baits. Most of the fish are still small ranging 9 to 11 1/2 inches. Its possible to catch mess! The whiting bite will likely heat up in the coming weeks! While fishing for whiting its possible to hook into a large red drum or some sharks. Best areas for the whiting are along sand bars leading in and out of the sounds and in the main rivers leading in from the sounds.

The redfish bite has been mercurial. Fishermen are finding few in all the familiar places. Are the fish finding more of they want or more of what they dislike? As one friend recently said for fish its all about survival. If fish aren’t showing in the logical places often it mean fish are still in the neighborhood, perhaps lots of fish! Most of the bellies of reds, we kept, in recent days have been empty. As temperatures raise their metabolism will spike. That can mean fish have been super reluctant fish will inhale a bait and lure with greed! Some of the reds were covered with sea lice, a sight more often associated with the winter. Likely these are fish coming up from the deep on the flats. There are reds on some of the flats and bite has been good at times! The water up river has been muddy resulting in poor conditions and a slow bite. As tides abate the bite will improve!

I hope this of interest and help! Keep what you what to eat and release the rest!

Fish On! Capt. Jack McGowan