Hot Beach Nightlife Season

With much of the inshore action slowing for the hot summer months, and if you want to get your saltwater fix without going offshore, this is a great time to head to the beach. However, during the day it can be close quarters sharing the beach with tourists and swimmers, and on the piers it is elbow-to-elbow. What most people don't know is that when temps approach 100 degrees in the daytime, the best time to fish is at night. From 6 PM to 10 AM is the best window for summer surf fishing. A nocturnal angler can expect to see Spanish Mackeral, seatrout, whiting, weakfish, flounder, black drum, bluefish, pompano, and sharks, sharks, and more sharks.

There is really something for everybody in the surf at night. From those who use light setups to throw artificials for Spanish Mackeral and seatrout, to medium live-bait rigs for bluefish, whiting, and black drum, to heavy surf-casting or standup gear to tangle with big sharks.

For those who prefer light setups, I prefer a 7-foot medium to medium heavy spinning rod with a 2500 t0 4000 size spinning reel spooled with 12 pound mono or 20 pound braid. If you throw artificials, I recommend using a 2 foot flourocarbon leader of 20 -pound test. As far as baits, casting spoons, artificial jigs, a jighead with a live shrimp, or a Gotcha plug (seen below) will do the ticket. Gotcha plugs are especially effective on Bluefish and Spanish Mackeral when retrieved very, very quickly.

For a heavier setup, I like an 8-foot medium-heavy action spinning rod with a 4000 or 5000 size reel, or a 7'6" or 8-foot casting rod with an Ambassadeur 5600 or 6500 size reel (or something comparable) spooled with 17-pound mono or 30-pound braid. If the surf is fairly calm with little current, I'll cast a rattling cork rig, like a Cajun Thunder, out beyond the breakers with a live mud minnow or shrimp. When the surf is heavier, I'll use a wire or heavy-mono bottom rig with 2 hooks. Usually at least a 2-ounce pyramid sinker is required to keep the bait down. This setup is a good all-around setup if you aren't sure what you're going to catch.

Surf fishing for big sharks is a whole new ballgame, and will be the subject of the next entry.

Slow Fishing on the Saltwater Side

It's been awhile since my last post, but things have been busy, and until recently, the fishing had been good. However since Tropical Storm Barry blew through things have been quite rough. The large roe seatrout have been spotty at best, and the odd redfish might only be found on a high tide in the grass. Heavy rain, though a blessing for farmers and landscapers alike, has made the water quite muddy. Even offshore, the greenwater extends out almost to the Navy towers.

Captain Johnny of Amick's Deep Sea Charters said that this is one of the toughest years they have ever had bottom fishing. The big red snapper and grouper are few and far between, and it is a struggle to limit out on even beeliners. They have had very consistent bites, though, from amberjack and dolphin. Mike Argenta, Assistant Store Manager at Bass Pro Shops, was fishing in 300 feet of water Sunday and caught a surprising amount of kings for that depth. The dolphin bite was hot, too, and they broke off a decent tuna. Cobia fishing in the Broad River and offshore continues to be good as well. A couple of reports of tarpon have been filtering in from the Brunswick area as the tarpon season gets a good jumpstart. Hopefully this year will be much better than last year's lackluster performance from the silver kings.

Surf fishing has been hit-and-miss. Whiting and bluefish are biting well, and those who fish a live whiting or blue on a wire fishfinder rig might get to tangle with a big blacktip or sand tiger shark. Good seatrout catches have been reported on the beaches using live mud minnows.

Huge Shark Catch + Fall Bass Hunt

Huge Tiger Shark Caught in Broad River

We heard this week of an amazing catch on October 5th in the Broad River near Beaufort. A local was fishing with his family at a deep spot known as the "Cobia Hole" near the Broad River bridge. Fishing on bottom with heavy tackle hoping to catch a respectable-sized shark, he got more than he bargained for. After a surprisingly short, but intense battle, he brought a 12 and 1/2 foot tiger shark to the boat. Being so large, there was no way to get the shark into his bay boat, so he towed it to shore to measure and clean it. After adding up the weight of the meat cleaned off, plus the rest of the carcass, it is estimated at near 700 pounds. While a huge shark, amazingly it is over 1,000 pounds lighter than the SC state record (and one-time world record), a 1,780 pound behemouth hauled in at Cherry Grove in 1964.


The story of that world record is an amazing one, not just for the size, but how it was caught. Walter Maxwell was fishing on a hot mid-June morning in Cherry Grove, and he was rigged up for big sharks. Using 130-pound line on a 16/0 Penn reel, Walter hooked up with that monster not from a boat, but from the pier. As crowds of onlookers gathered, he battled the shark up and down the boards for hours, eventually bringing the giant onto the beach. When it was beached it probably weighed over 2,000 pounds, but it wasn't weighed until hours later when it was trucked to a scale large enough to weigh it. In that time it lost a lot of weight from dehydration. However, even that couldn't keep it from going down in the records as the largest tiger shark ever caught until it was broken in 2004 on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Fall Bass Hunt

Fishing for largemouth bass in the fall can be hit-and-miss. Bass become much more picky in their eating habits as the water starts to cool, and many factors weigh into the feeding patterns. Weather is the single biggest factor at play in the fall, and success depends on cold fronts, cloud cover, air temperature, water temperature, rainfall, and water clarity. The best time to fish is the short period before a cold front moves through when there is good cloudcover, but the temperatures have not dropped a lot yet. Fish are cold-blooded, meaning that they need to feed aggressively while it is warmer so they can stock up on calories for when colder temps make the fish sluggish. This is especially true of big bass, who need to feed like a bear that's about to go into hibernation.

Good baits this time of year are baitfish imitations, like flukes or spinnerbaits. Cooler temperatures mean you should slow down your presentation a little bit to accomidate for slower fish. A pig-and-jig combination is also a good choice. In a black/blue color, it is great flipped around structure like submerged timber, docks, and river bluffs.

After a front moves through, bluebird skies and frigid air usually mean the bass bite will nearly shut off all together. However, if you absolutely must go fishing, suspending or sinking stick baits like a Smithwick Rogue work very well fished slowly at deeper depths, where the bass are hunkered down.

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.