Trout & Tailers

This weekend was filled with company, broken fences from fallen trees, and a laundry list of other events. BUT, somehow Saturday brought us a short window about midday with no kiddies. Hmmmm, have a couple of choices here.  Time to get down to some hard core fishing! Michelle and I were going to find us some low water reds stuck back in the creek. Only the creeks were now just muddy beaches with a foot of negative low kicked out further with some pretty stiff winds.  Plan B, reds on the edges of bigger water.  We got in close for some sight fishing and saw about 6 good ones, but the wind and dirty water made it tough to get shots until we about ran them over.  Plan C, back off and make long cast in the cleanest stuff we could find.  With the water almost dead still we started getting bit. Only these drum were not red. Specks, and good ones at that. We caught a dozen and the bite quit. Of course Michelle ends up with the bigger ones…again. All fish were between 15 and 20 inches. All caught on 3” white Gulp! shrimp.

Enter Sunday morning after a wonderful evening with my sweetie, friends, good music, and etc. I wake up to the sound of Daniel banging the keyboard in search of that elusive Lego set. Now the light bulb goes off in my head. I grab Daniel and tell him if he will sneak out with me we will have about 30 min of a small flood tide window and then I will run him to Target for that Lego something or other. I was skeptical with westerly’s not letting the tide get up on a borderline a.m. flood anyway. One rod, one weedless weighted hook, one white gulp shrimp. We fly to the marina, crank the Yammy and fly to a flat. We hit the spartina grass running, and see three way off in the back. Walking quickly, the tails disappear. Now the tide is about to back out and here comes one happy red bulldozing thru the grass right in front of us. At this point it’s pretty much just dropping the shrimp in front of him. Sure enough he swims right to it and never stopping sucks it in. Fish on little man Dan! One cast, one fish and back to the hill…I mean Target.

 All fish released for karma!

 

Sharkin and table fare...

Just wanted to share a couple great trips from last week where the mission was to pull on something that pulled back.  David and his sons Jay, Morgan & Matthew had a great day sharking with a mix of bonnetheads, blacktips, atlantic sharpnose and a true 6 ft. monster.  At first I thought the big shark was a bull, but under closer inspection local shark expert Capt. Brooks Good deemed it to be a sandbar shark.  This beast pulled us down the beach for close to a mile, and when we pulled the 7/0 7766D Mustad hook out it looked more like a dart than a hook.  We planned to flounder fish at the end of the trip, but the shark had other plans.  We still managed 15 minutes flattie fishing and the fellas stuck some good ones for dinner.

When Jason and his son Henry showed up at the dock for another shark trip, I knew I was in trouble.  Henry pretty much told me he was the man and was a mission.  This little dude was a fishing machine.  Henry kept score on every fish caught.  I think at the end of the day, it was Henry- 14, Dad- 8 and Capt. Tim-0.  My new name, from Henry, was Mr. Doughnut, as I couldn’t catch “doodely”.  Henry was crowned grand champion, and got to captain the boat home. 

I would also like to mention that we were sharking for table fare.  I know a lot of folks scoff at the idea of eating shark, but the spinners, blacktips and sharpnose in the 2-3 ft range make for some really fine eating.  The key is to gut the sharks immediately and get them on ice.  While many folks steak them out, I prefer to filet them.  The filets are firm, white and have very little if any red in them.  They are delicious grilled or fried.  Thanks gang for a couple awesome days of getting our strings stretched!

The Quack, Flounder Crack and Don’t Look Back…

I have been very fortunate to fish with so many great anglers over the years.  It’s always a treat (and challenge) when a fisherman shares his experiences from fishing around the world. Fast forward to Sat (5/26) and enter another heavy hitter.  Mill was fresh off a Gulf Coast tour where he had landed a pile of quality trout including a real gator at 7.5, all on plugs. The plan was to leave all corks and bait at home, find a few of our Golden Isles trout, and go exploit the amazing flounder bite that’s been going on…all artificial of course.

 Hit the dock a 0 dark thirty and load drinks and…no ice.  Strike one, and I thought I detected a nervous twitch from Mill (probably just indigestion). All good, we’ll fish some deep structure nearby and wait 30 minutes for the boys at the marina to open up.  No bites deep, so back for ice and off we go. There’s a little breeze blowing but the water looks pretty good.  We break out the bombers and go to chunkin’.  Bang, big bite.  Drag screamin’ thinkin big red, but when we get a look, an absolute beast of a bonnet head has the special bomber inhaled.  So now we’re dragged half way down the river with no trout. That’s a point against, so minus one point.  We beat some more banks with nothing to show.  Then bang, big bite.  Too big.  Cow ray = minus 2.  Mill picks off a couple of pocket trout, to actually prove that trout exist on the east coast. I am doing nothing to back up the amazing trout fishing that St Simons has to offer.

 Oh well, time to break out the flounder crack (Gulp! 4” Swimming Mullet) and start stickin’ flat fish. Right off the bat, big bite.  I know Mill has just hooked that 10 lb flattie.  Cow ray.  Minus three.  Now I am pretty sure I am getting the stink eye and I swear that eyebrow is twitching.  OK, deep breath, look over my shoulder, and I got wind and what looks like an armada of boats moving in. Time to bear down. And I have got just the angler to get it done.  So jigging our way thru snags and break-offs, Mill starts picking the flattie’s off.  Three hundred ninety two casts later, we are at three.  It’s obvious the bite is tough.  With time running short, we pick it up a notch.  Three solid fish later, and we end up with 6. That dreaded “shoulda been here yesterday” is echoing in my head.

But now the rest of the story.  Mill actually kept me laughing the whole trip, and turned out to be one of those guys you like to have with you on every trip.  Besides being a tremendous angler, Mill is a world class guy.  Look for the upcoming sequel, “The Quack Attack…Pluggin’ with Mill”. Thanks Mill, I had a great time, and enjoyed meeting your better half!

Flounder Pounder!

William, Tim and their sons Cole and Mitch fished with us last year and hurt the flatties pretty good.  Today they came back and just plain hammered them.  Seventeen keepers to the boat, including a few real pigs.  Lost a heartbreaker at the boat, and waded through a few shorts.  4" Gulp swimming mullet, aka flounder crack, got the job done.  My hats off to these guys, they really worked their magic with the jigs with a pretty stiff breeze blowing.

Good Eating Fish...

Had a great time with James and Shirley from Albany today.  The plan was to get some "good eating fish".  I know there is a good trout bite going on with the water clarity really nice right now, but we could only muster up specks at a few spots, and we went through really short and really nice, but no serious numbers.  On to Plan B-the "good eating fish".  We switched over to the trusty gulp swimming mullets and proceeded to pick off 10 flatties, including 7 real nice ones and a genuine doormat.  James and Shirley were an absolute pleasure to fish with, and caught on to the artificials really quick.   Thanks for an awesome morning!

Trips and Trouts and Flatfish…Oh My

Had an extremely fun trip with Jared, his brother Micah, and their father Dennis out in the marsh today. With no real agenda, we started chunkin’ plastics for trout and started getting bit immediately.  Although we weeded through some shorts, we ended up with some solid keepers.  It was decision time now, and with a good breeze coming out of the southwest, we decided to run down the beach looking for triple tails.  As most of you know, although fairly small, they have shown up pretty good.  Well today they didn’t show…much.  We got a look at 4 the size of blue gills that sunk down before we could even fire off a cast.  After a few strolls down the beach we were about to head back inshore when a nice one showed.  Dennis got the cork right where it should be, and when that shrimp started dancing outta the water we knew he was a had lad.  It was a good one at 22”, and with only 5 sighted we decided to check on the flatties.  We jerked up a half dozen, including 3 good ones and headed to the hill to knock the hides off of ‘em.  Thanks guys, like the many trips before you, you guys sure make it fun for me!  Am I allowed to have this much fun?

St Simons Island Fishing April 2012

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to put together a report, so I thought I would put it into a “recap” of sorts.  This has been a very interesting spring so far.  First, and I’ve said it before, people that enjoy fishing have got to be the best folks in the world.  I have been blessed with meeting and fishing with some really great folks.  But back to the fishing.  It seems that March and April switched places and saw the water temps rise and fall accordingly. The nearshore reefs experienced an explosion of sea bass, summer trout, bull reds, flounder, Spanish mackerel and even a few cobia.  The spadefish and triggers have also shown up pretty good too.  Inshore the triple tails and trout showed early and have been biting quite well.  There have been quite a few limits of trout caught, and many fish are in the 16-18” class.  While many triple tails are undersize, there are plenty of keepers on the beach.  The flounder are here in earnest, and many schools of big redfish are roaming the shallows.  When the tides reach 8 ft, there are plenty of tailing fish in the grass now as well.  And as expected, there are many big sharks roaming our waters right now.  This is a great time to jump on the boat as there are many opportunities for many different fish right now!   You know when I fish I don’t like to leave anything on the table, and it seems like the music never stops…Here are a few pics from the last few weeks. Enjoy!