Fishing had been steady out of the gates with lots of smaller reds and trout. All that changed quickly when Mark’s cork dropped and the drag started humming! What I thought would be a nice redfish made us all do a double take when it turned out to be a 22″ trout. One of the biggest so far this year. Great job!
With sunny skies, we started the charter with mud minnows and popping corks. Caught some nice legal trout and slot redfish. Then moved over to the docks to try get a big red in the boat. Right away, a rod snapped over as a red smoked cut mullet. Brought him to the boat and had a nice 27″ fish to finish the day!
Well, it’s that time of year where fishing becomes as pleasant as the weather. The Rudkowski clan joined me again and we steadily caught fish for eight hours. Redfish, trout and flounder made the lowcountry slam and a silly amount of ladyfish added to that total. Mud minnows and corks were the ticket. Highlight of the charter were multiple 7-9lb reds that would smoke our corks as they floated along grass lines.
Started at first light to try to catch the last bit of outgoing tide. We were hoping to fish the same smoking hot ladyfish bite we found yesterday. Unfortunately, there was no bait to be found along the grass edges and the ladyfish were absent. Moved into the inlet around slack low and spent the next three hours fighting sharks and cow nosed rays one after the other. Sharks were eating anything thrown at them but seemed to prefer cut bait fish. Great action for most of the morning!
Over a six hour charter, Cheryl and Carrie fished a full falling tide. After the tide started moving, trout started hitting mud minnows under popping corks and Carrie landed the biggest at 19″. Moving over to the flats, reds were smoking cracked blue crab and Cheryl won the weight class with a 12 pounder. Fished rocky structure to end the charter hoping to maybe find a flounder. Sure enough, Cheryl put a 19″ flounder in the boat with minutes left in the charter.
Found big schools of menhaden flickering at first light in the ICW and knew we were setting up for a great day. Cut them up into chunks and fished docks as the tide rose from slack low. Rods stayed bent over for the whole charter with redfish crushing our baits. Broke off plenty but ultimately landed seven pigs with the heaviest at 13lbs. as well as plenty of slot fish. Fresh menhaden make fishing so good!
Visiting from France, Cedrik refused to let winds gusting 30+ out of the NE to keep him from catching redfish. We motored slowly over to one of the few corners with shelter and began to work the docks. Found a surprisingly strong bite given the conditions with cut mullet and mud minnows on jigheads both working. Good call Cedrik!
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