Several factors this week made fishing challenging: the algae bloom, rough conditions caused by wind and negative tides. Despite challenging conditions there has been some good flounder and seatrout fishing. Best seatrout action can be on beach fronts. Fishermen can find a mixture of seatrout from small males to legal fish to large roe seatrout. Schools of small redfish are popping up. These schools of small “rat reds” do not appear to as concentrated as in past years. Hopefully this will change as the summer progresses. The shark bite which has been phenomenal in Wassaw Sound has slowed. Bait which has been everywhere suddenly is hard to find. Large school of bait will filter back into the sound system as negative tides abate. A negative tide is that is lower than a average low tide. A week of negative tides (combined with wind) can literally pull bait out. It is a stretch to say it was the tides alone attributed to the challenging conditions. More likely it was a combination of factors. The negative tides definitely did not help. On a brighter note there were nice flounder caught near the sounds fishing with mud minnows and shrimp as well some dandy seatrout!
Tides for the coming week are soft tides. Should give plenty of opportunities to target flounders and redfish. The seatrout bite should be good. An oil spill in the near Elba Island has put a temporary damper on targeting jack crevalles in the Savannah River . Prior to the oil spill there few jacks seen and few caught near the Coast Guard station. Fishermen are well advised to stay clear of South Channel, Fields Cuts and the Savannah River until the spill has been cleared and the damaged assessed. This will likely take several days if not longer. Ricky Johnston reported catching about 30 seatrout north of Savannah. There have been similar catches in local waters. Typically most of seatrout will be undersized with a few keepers and few large fish. It’s always a good idea to release any large roe seatrout. This is next year’s crop of fish!
There have few tarpon caught. Tarpon action should continue to heat up!
Most unusual catch this week was a nurse shark that weighted about 100 pounds by Will, Sam, Jay and Blake Herrin off of Cabbage Island Spit. The guys videoed the fish and let it slide back down to its haunts off of Wassaw.
Hope this of help!
Good Fishing! Capt. Jack McGowan