The days are hot on the coast. Various sting rays can be spotted on most outings. Occasionally a ray can be seen jumping out of the water or crashing back to the surface. Unfortunately for cast netters and swimmers jellyfish are plentiful. August is likely the height of the jellyfish season. When surf fishing this time of year wear a shoe suitable for water and long pants! One remedy for jellyfish stings is Adolf’s meat tenderizer. A Savannah resident Chip Grayson with some assistant from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography has come out with a product to provide relief from jellyfish stings. The bad news is this product is not yet on the market. This will likely be a product that fishermen and swimmers on the coast during late summer will want to have on hand. Despite lots of particle matter in the water finding clean water has not very difficult. The drift, flow of water, has been poor most of the week. Conditions have been less that ideal. Nonetheless fishing has been good! Most the larger seatrout are a pound and half or better. Slow moving water while not ideal for seatrout is good for flounder fishing. Plenty of ladyfish. Most of the trout have been caught on Cajun Thunders rigs with about a 2 foot leaders. While fishing has not been fast and furious the bite has been good with steady action and quality fish. Chartreuse or another color? When pitching for seatrout chartreuse is usually a go to color. After many casts with a chartreuse fly produced nothing; the first cast with a gold/brown rattle shrimp produced a seatrout. Seatrout are keying on shrimp. Shrimp patterns and colors are hard to beat! A few shrimp patterns from Bass Assassin are new penny, native shrimp and red/gold shiner. Any of these patterns will catch fish particularly when shrimp are plentiful!
Nice size whiting are plentiful on the sandbars. If one spot isn’t producing look for different spot with a more current. Black tips large and small can found along sand spits. If shrimp and squid aren’t producing switch to fresh cut bait. Fishermen are complaining large schools of menhaden aren’t present in the sounds. This can vary day to day. At present small menhaden can be found in the rivers. Larger schools of bigger pogies are further out. Bait patterns vary year to year. If your day of fishing depends on finding menhaden always have a backup. Mullet, tomtates, pinfish and ladyfish can make an excellent tarpon/shark bait.
Some reports of triple tail along near shore structure. These fish are usually targeted when the current is slack or close to slack using float rigs and shrimp.
Tides for the remainder of this week are pretty small tides (less than 7 foot). Drift will likely be slow resulting in a slower bite and good flounder fishing. Capt. Wild Bill reports he starting to catch some young of the year redfish in the keeper range. Most are still around 12 inches but some have already keeper size. That said there’s not much meat on a small redfish. It’s always good to go light on your redfish take, opt for other fish. The main reasons are redfish are so much fun to catch and second it takes this fish several years to reach to sexual maturity.
Hope this of help! Good Fishing!
Capt. Jack McGowan