Area Fishing Report 4/11

Inshore Report

Despite a recent cold snap, area inshore fishing continues to be strong. Redfish continue to congregate on the mud flats on sunny afternoons, and will take soft plastic jerkbaits, DOA shrimp, live shrimp on a jighead, or Berkley Gulp! shrimp (try the Lime Tiger color). If a strong high tide moves them into the grass try throwing a weedless spoon. Seatrout are still found in deeper water, and will take curl-tail grubs, shad-tail jigs, and of course, shrimp. A few reports of the bigger roe trout are around, but with water temps in the mid-60's it should still be a week or two before they will really show up. On the surf/pier front some bigger whiting are starting to show up, as well as an unusually high number of spot (spotted croaker) catches. A few sharks are showing up, and pompano should start to show up as well as the water nears 70 degrees. Striper fishing in the Savannah and Ogeechee rivers is starting to wind down, but there are probably still a few around that will hit mullet or mud minnows.

Offshore Report

There have been some amazing black seabass catches lately on the nearshore wrecks and artificial reefs. Some boats are limiting out just a few minutes after arriving at the fishing grounds. Red snapper and grouper catches have started to improve as the bottom fishing season ramps up. One lucky angler fishing on Steve Amick's Scat II caught a nice red snapper in the 16-20 pound range at the Snapper Banks on March 31st: a nice catch so early in the season. On the trolling front, the water is still a little too chilly for the big kings to show up, but a few early runners might be around. Some outstanding reports of wahoo have been coming in from the Stream, and guys have been catching them on ballyhoo with hair-skirted Islanders or other teasers over the nose.

Bottom Fishing Report 4/3

After a week of watching the marine forecast and crossing our fingers, we were able to take a trip to the Savannah Snapper Banks yesterday with Captain Johnny Fulcher of Amick's Charters aboard the Scamp. The boat, which handles smaller trips than Steve Amick's big Scat II, just had a new engine installed that tops the boat out at over 30 knots. While choppy 3-5 foot seas kept us from reaching that speed, the maiden voyage of the Scamp was very quick, getting to and from the Snapper Banks in about 2 hours.

Cpt. Johnny put us on the spot and our 5-man group quickly limited out on beeliners. We got 4 good red snappers, including one in the 15-pound range, and a couple of keeper scamps. I caught one gag grouper which was barely undersized, but the law's the law. Other catches included some big black sea bass and triggerfish. One common pattern on the southeast Atlantic coast is that sharks become highly active after a period of blustery conditions. This was the case again yesterday, as we caught about 10 reef sharks, each causing fishing to stop for awhile as the shark circled, tangling lines. At one point a shark tangled the lines of every angler on the boat!

Despite shark troubles, it was a great day and the conditions smoothed out as it went along. The only bad part was the 50 pounds of fish I cleaned when I got home! Pictures of the trip coming soon.