Can't Resist

December 26 and 27,2014

Water temp 56 degrees

Hunter has the fishing jones real bad so we headed out again to attack the reds on Friday evening and to make sure that they would be there for Willie when he arrives tomorrow.

Hunter whacked them again as many reds were seen in the outgoing low tide.

Willie and Patty arrived with big mommoo in tow and after some gift sharing and drinks, we got up and tackled the reds on Saturday morning.

It was our best redfish day since moving to Beaufort, with 8 redfish coming boat side.

They were really hammering the Gulp Jerkshad on the incoming tide.

Hunter also scored with the jig head and mud minnow curly tail.

I did hear something I thought I would never hear this morning.  As we kept catching slot redfish, Willie kept saying "throw them back".  I have never seen him turn down a fish fry, but he must have had the Christmas spirit as he saved 7 redfish lives today.

It is great to get out with family and enjoy the outdoors.  Always a good memory!

Merry Christmas and a Big Redfish To All

12.25.15

Water Temp 53 deg

Outgoing tide near the bottom of a -.9

After enjoying a joyous Christmas, turkey, mashed taters and gravy, we headed out for a quick two hour trip to enjoy the beautiful weather and to try and stick a redfish on the very low tide that was forecast.

Something was different today.  As we arrived at our redfish hole, we could see bait flipping.  That hasn't been seen in a month.  Soon we could see the reds stirring in the current and it wasn't long before Nancy and Hunter swung a double aboard.

Nancy's fish hit a mud minnow under a tourist rig and Hunter's fish ate a glow gulp shrimp in the swift water.

After that quick start Hunter got hot on them as he brought two more fish boat side with his trusty gulp rig.

Both of these were overslot beauties that put up a great fight.

We made it back to the ramp on time to load the boat crooked on the trailer due to the low tide.

Sometimes you wonder why did we move?  This outing is why.

Battling The Elements

12.23.15

Water temp 52 degrees

Sitting around the house watching the huge tide come in, trying to see the other side of the river, and misting rain, we started talking about how we have had some really good fishing days when it's this crappy out.  Fog and rain has done us well when fishing for freshwater fish, but would it work for the saltwater variety?

A little window of opportunity arrived as the tide was hauling out in the afternoon.  So, we eased out of the ramp to give it a try.

We started jumping the reds about a half hour after our arrival.  While they weren't real coopertative, one did want to put on a show as he socked my jig and battled me in the swift water.

Getting him boat side, Hunter swung him aboard.  The over slot 28" redfish was a beauty with three spots on his side.

I flipped him over to get the picture, my expression reveals that he stabbed me pretty good with his dorsal fin.

We followed the schools of reds as they worked their way against the tide, but no others would offer at our baits.

We made a quick stop at our trout hole and Hunter put a hurting on them with mud minnows, but no trout came home with us as they all were peanuts again.

You don't know, til ya go.

Fishing for Peanuts

12.19-12.20

water temp 53 degrees

Ben came down from Augusta and hooked up with Hunter and I for some Christmastime fishing.
While it was a little raw we felt the fish should bite and hit some good holes from the Broad River to Parris Island and the Beaufort River in our back yard.

We are proud to announce that we are really good at catching peanut trout.

We caught many like these:

We did have some good moments of bald eagles eating fish out of the creek we were in, lots of ducks, the marine corp shooting round after round and the sound of the Marines hard at work getting ready to defend our country.

Ben kept us amused with dentistry stories and I lost a lot of hooks and lead to the underwater trees.

Hunter just kept catching peanuts and wondering if the fish get any bigger.

We're gonna try later in the week and hopefully graduate to something bigger,  if not I'm breaking out my ultra light equipment.

Nice and Cool Thanksgiving, Just Like The Fishing

11.28-29

Water Temp 51-53

Hunter and I braved the cold Thursday and Friday with memories of last year's Black Friday slugfest.

Those memories are just that... memories, we couldn't put it together on these trips.

Friday in the 29 degree weather, we headed to the back yard and chased a school of redfish up and down the river bank with only one taker.  They were there as we could have thrown a net on them and limited out.  They must have ate a lot of turkey 'cause they sure weren't hungry.

Hunter did bag this fellow:

We then ran over to the trout hole and they were there with a nice keeper trout coming aboard immediately and then several other small ones came over the gunwales, but that slowed rather quickly.

We put the boat on the trailer and headed over to Battery Creek where we had a hot tip on a redfish bite.  But it didn't pan out as the tide had risen and the reds evidently don't like deeper water.

Saturday we trailered over to the Chechessee to try and duplicate last years redfish bonanza.  We were greeted with a little warmer morning and much more wildlife activity as the birds were flying and the dolphin were everywhere.  We covered a lot of water, but to no avail as we didn't even raise a bite in the pretty water.

As Hunter and I discussed later: Hey the boat ran good!

Trout Hole, Red Hole

11.16.14

Water temp: 57 degrees

In fishing the area the last few months, I have found two holes that work real well when the tide is right.  All we need is two cups of gas, two rods, two jigheads and two twister grubs in mud minnow color and we are in business.

After a misty cold morning the rain and fog got out of here and the tide was forecasted as low at 10:30AM.  Since we had the two cups of gas, we geared up in our long johns and headed over to the red hole first.

They were there as I broke one off on the oyster shells, had a pig just come unbuttoned, and put two in the boat that were just keepers.

Nancy caught one on the tourist rig tipped with a white gulp and I got one on the jig head.

After admiring both of them and checking out their blue tails we released both as there isn't much meat on a just keeper.

Two more passes and the reds had abandoned the area, so we decided to head over to the trout hole.

We sure weren't disappointed as we caught trout after trout.  We had to weed our way through dozens of 12"-13" trout to get to three keepers that came home with us.

This is a nice 18'+ that was wearing size husky.  

The tide finally got high enough that the bite slowed and we decided to burn the other cup of gas to motor home.  

A very good trip, now if I can just expand to a few other holes!

Tough Weekend

11.8-9

Water temp 63 degrees

Hunter got out of the office and wanted to get outdoors, so he ventured  into town this past weekend.

The tides didn't work too well for us as we seemed to be fishing water a lot bigger than we were used to.

Saturday we hooked up with the local gigging semi pro Griffin.

We hit a lot of his spots that hold fish at night, but all he kept saying was "c'mon low tide".  The low tide didn't occur until we got the boat out of the water.

We still managed 9 trout with 3 being keepers.  All were caught on a jighead and soft bait reeled very slowly back to the boat.

Hunter and I gave it a try Sunday before he headed back to C-town.

We hit out spots that produced a couple of weeks ago, but again the water was way up.

We zeroed which didn't feel to good, but we got to see the dolphins put on a show.

Still learning!

Redfish in the Back Yard

10.18 and 19

Water temp 72

Hunter wanted to get into the action, so he came down from C town this past weekend.

I took him to the bend in the river where Nancy and I cleaned up earlier in the week, but as usual they the fish had evacuated the area.

He had fished some areas further south in the river so we headed down past down town to search out his locations.  We arrived to find boats all over his hole.  We barged in but the bent pole pattern didn't work too well, as we didn't get a bite and we didn't see anyone with their rods bent.  So we continued south and found a small creek that had a lot of bait.

The tide had turned and was incoming and we just floated up the creek with current.  We bagged a little red and a bunch of trout of which there may have been one keeper.

We came back up the river hoping the incoming tide would change our luck, which it did big time.

We fished across the river and as I picked up a few small pups I started seeing the bigger boys up in inches of water.

We changed out game plan and started seeing the big schools of reds in the shallow water waiting for enough water to get into the grass and stuff themselves with fiddler crabs.

I baited a carolina rig with a finger mullet and tossed it up in the skinny water.  It wasn't in the water but a few seconds when the mullet was tried to get wings over and over.  A big gulp occurred every time the red missed the flying mullet.  Finally the red connected and then I connected.  After a spirited battle this nice overslot red came to get his picture taken.

We chased the big school of reds until the tide got high and they dispersed, but it was an hour of non stop action.

Sunday arrived windy with an outgoing tide.  Hunter wanted to fish a couple of hours before heading home.

It was much tougher to set up because of the wind and tide, but we managed to get Hunter set up on a small oyster point and he pounded the reds until we got blown off the hole.

All of his fish were on the sure ketch sure kurl jig.  I can't wait until my package comes today.  I only have one left that isn't superglued together.

Fish In The Box

10.14.14

Water Temp: 78

We decided to stay close to the house this morning due to the impending storms.

As we left the ramp the wind was relatively docile, but as we reached the area where we like to net our bait, the wind was really howling.

I managed to put about two dozen shrimp in the boat and we headed off to our destination.  We soon realized that the wind wouldn't allow the tin boat safe passage so we pealed off to fish an area of the river that the channel swings close to the oyster strewn bank and nestle in out of the wind.

That turned out to be a good decision as the bite was on as many numerous small trout came boat side and three nice keeper trout and a keeper redfish were in the box before the bite petered out.

We had hit the tide just as it started coming in and the hour or so of the incoming tide was a fish stew.

Nancy was connecting on the live shrimp and I was nailing them on a jig head with a Sureketch grub.

I couldn't catch anything on them in Florida, but they love them here in South Carolina.

Nice 18" trout started the day

The SC reds have a beautiful blue tinged tail

Panko encrusted fish sandwiches was the menu special at the Chandlers Tuesday night.

Yum!

Girlz Rool Boyz Drool

10.1.14, 10.2.14

Patty and Willie had time out from their job in Northeast Georgia after consulting with Google maps  and realizing we were a "short" 5 and one half hour drive away.  So they jumped in their van and headed to the low country to see if Nancy and I could find any fish here.

We headed out to the Broad River again, to soak some cut mullet and see if a big red would give them a South Carolina welcome.

Well by the end of the day, Willie and I had heard the title of this story a few times, girlz rool, boyz drool.

Nancy quickly got on board as her rod doubled up and again she put the ol' Mitchell reel to the test.

After a back and forth battle she brought this beauty to the boat.

Willie caught a really nice toad fish and Nancy brought a ray boat side, before Patty got on the board.

She fought and fought as a battle raged between her and what we (the boyz) thought was a big ray.

But she kept saying, no way!

As usual, she was correct as this massive bull came to the Seacraft.

We weren't able to entice any other big bites.

As the tide slackened we tried dropping some cut shrimp on the pilings for some sheepshead, but only ended up with a black sea bass for our efforts.

Day two, we headed to the Cat Island area trying to find smaller fish so we could have a fish fry.

But, all we could bring to the tin boat was about a dozen small trout.

Always good to have guests and family in to fish and enjoy good times together.

We promised them next time we would have them figured out and a fish fry would be guaranteed!

Update on Bull Red

10.1.14

The big red that I caught in the Broad River a couple of weeks ago was tagged.  Hunter cut the tag off before we released it to swim again.

The following day, I cleaned the algae off the tag revealing a SCDNR tag.  I reviewed the instructions online on how to report the catch.

I received a letter with a t-shirt this week.

The letter stated that the fish was caught tagged on December 3, 2002 8 miles offshore of Charleston. It was 35.4 inches long then.  It traveled 70 miles to the Broad River where I caught it.

So when you catch a bull red think how old it is and marvel that anything can stay alive that long in the salt!

What A Difference A Day Makes

9.20 and 9.21.2014

The reason we moved came to fruition this past weekend.  Hunter came down to fish the weekend with us!
Nice when a plan works out.
Saturday was a gloomy, drizzly day, but felt fishy with the tides working in our favor.
Hunter and I headed out to the river to try and capitalize on what few locations Nancy and I found earlier in the week.  All of those locations were high and dry as the tide had dropped the water off our trout hole.  They would have to have lungs to live where we caught them earlier.
Hunter threw the cast net and picked up a lot of finger mullet and pinfish, but they were the only fish that came to the tin boat on Saturday.

As we were cleaning the boat up at the end of the day, Hunter got a text and said "ugh, you ain't gonna want to see this".  It was a text, with pictures of course, of the big reds his buddy Jeff had caught  and put in the boat fishing out of Hilton Head on Saturday.

We are wise enough to let a guy from Boston tell us where to go, literally and figuratively, and we decided to fire up the Seacraft and head over to the Broad River on Sunday.

Nancy said she would go since it was forecasted to be a nice day, while Charlotte had to stay behind and study.

So, after a nice brunch with the Westcobbs we set off to the Broad.

There is an excellent ramp at the foot of the bridge which is an easy 15 minute drive from our home.  It is nice to see the facilities here and not having to pay the Wakulla County "user tax" I mean boat ramp fee.

Not knowing what to expect, I was surprised to see the water rolling under the bridge.  A little on edge about anchoring and holding in the swift water, Hunter chucked the anchor out and we started baiting up with some cut mullet.

The view was architecturally pleasing.

We may have been in the water about 10 minutes when Nancy got on the board.

She put the old Mitchell to work.

She battled the big fish in the swift water for about 15 minutes and was rewarded with this monster bull red.

As the tide slacked a few trash fish came aboard, small sharks and rays.

We decided to look for some bait up river while the tide was flipping and we rewarded by seeing some nice tarpon jumping and feeding on menhaden in the river.  Hunter tried but couldn't connect on any menhaden in his net, so we headed back to the bridge for another hour of fishing.

As the cleaner water started flowing back up the river, it was my turn to get introduced to the bull red population of South Carolina as my rod went down and my cut mullet was devoured by another bull.

Again, a nice fight occurred and soon a pretty red came boat side.

After all of this hub bub came to an end, I hear Hunter say "oh sheet" and I see his line ripping to the surface.  Knowing that tarpon made journeys through the spans of the bridge, I quickly jumped back to the controls and got ready to fire up the old Seacraft.  But, the big fish torpedoed to the surface and shook it's huge head and broke Hunter's line before we had the opportunity to give chase.

We gathered up and pulled anchor marveling at what big fish swim in the Broad River.

I think it's a good start to South Carolina Low Country fishing!

And So It Begins........

9.15.14

We finally have gotten all things in order.
Move in.  Check.
Insurance. Check.
Pay property tax on cars and boats. Check.
Go back and forth between county auditor and DMV to get licenses for car and boats. Check.
Get drivers license. Check.
Get fishing license. Check.
Slap numbers and stickers on sides of boat. Check.
Finally, go fishing! Check.

We ventured out in the tin boat, not knowing where to go except for looking at people fishing around the Beaufort area with my binocs from the back deck.

Armed with plastics and jigheads we headed out on our first adventure.

The good old bonnet head showed up first.  He liked the old fake shrimp on a jighead and put up a nice fight on the spinning rod.

We putted around trying to get used to boating in the area.  Huge tides, fast moving water and endless creeks makes it a challenge. 

We just kept looking for fishy little points and islands where the weeds changed in size and type.

Finally we hit one last place and caught three trout.  Two were South Carolina keepers, 14" plus  and Nancy got a non keeper.  But she scored!

She tried to make it look bigger by holding it out towards the camera.  She has learned well.

Not a bad start to our adventures here in the low country of Beaufort.