Apr 04, 2010

By | April 4, 2010

The bite is picking up! Several fishermen are reporting good catches of whiting. Some fishing near the beach are catching bull whiting. Although most of the whiting seem to be either barely legal or just undersized. Either way it is very encouraging that whiting are moving in the sounds!

The seatrout bite is still off with some activity reported near the beachfront. Most of the seatrout reports are coming from south of Savannah. The catches appear to be scattered and the numbers around seven or eight in a catch.

After stating the large school of redfish appear to be breaking up C.T. of Tybee Island and Tackle stated one fisherman encountered a large school near the jetties. Those fish appeared to be traveling. The best a fisherman can do with fish like these is to pick off one or two. When you see a sight like this it is impressive! It just hard to do much with fish that are on the move.

Redfish have been biting! With warmer temperatures this week smaller reds in the 14 to 15 inch range got active. Lots of smaller reds were cover with a harmless cold water parasite. This likely means these fish have been hold up in or around marshy areas (not moving very much). As water temperature has risen these fish are getting active. The numbers while not staggering are good. If a fishermen catches a dozen or more reds very likely there were more.

A few flounders have been caught while not enough to actively target this fish. It is still a good to see a few being caught. Most of these are near the sound and sandy bottom areas. Lots of mud minnows showing up in the feeder creeks. Another good sign of life coming to the coast! Fiddler crabs are popping out of the their holes. The problem with warming conditions is a normally lethargic crab is now a speed demon. Those picking fiddler crabs off the ground should have little problem, despite their speed, in gathering a bunch. Better yet if you don’t want to fight the dreaded sand gnat and mud just buy some at your bait shop!

Coming off spring tides and rising temperatures will mean more favorable fishing conditions. That said fishing could still be tricky. The seatrout bite still is not happening. Local kayak fishermen are reporting the inshore sheepshead is strong. Most of the legal size or better. Anticipate the offshore sheepshead bite to subside and the inshore bite to intensify in the coming days. For now both the inshore and offshore bite has been good. Those seeking seabass have done very well. The redfish bite is a bit problematic. Good fisherman can still struggle in finding fish. Although with persistence its very likely fishermen can find some nice reds. Warming conditions will likely mean the bite will picking up!

Tides look good this week for sheepshead, redfish and flounder! With small tides the water should be clearing up and conditions improving!

Hope this of interest and help!

Fish On! Capt. Jack McGowan