CAPT JUDY'S SALTWATER REPORT AUG 2008

August 18, 2008

Happy Fish Day!

Saltwater inshore, offshore, blue water fishing report, Freshies Suggestions, and “Little Miss Judy’s story! Thanks for reading! Captain Judy

Basic Boating Course

The Tybee Light Power Squadron

I don’t now about you, but if I was just starting out with a boat and didn’t have anyone to teach me the “ins and outs” of boating, I certainly would be interested in this course. Boating is serious, but certainly can be a lot of fun! This course teaches such things as understanding of navigational markers, such as which side you need to be on and basically what they mean in the first place. My father used to say “Starboard to the right and Port to the left, “red right return” when heading in from the ocean, and buoys are basically highway markers in the ocean. I have to be honest back then I didn’t understand a thing he meant. At least until he really explained it to me…The Tybee Light Power Squadron is here for you! I suggest taking advantage of this great learning opportunity! Once you learn safe boating, then it will be time to sign up for one of my inshore or offshore fishing classes, which are going to be held in January and February 2009. Dates of schools to be posted soon!

Basic Boating Course Schedule

The Tybee Light Power Squadron

Beginning Date: Tuesday September 9, 2008
Where: Memorial Hospital Hoskins Center – Classroom 4
Located on the corner of Ranger Street and 69th Street
Time: 7:00 PM Registration at 6:30 PM
Cost: $55.00 plus $5.00 each for additional family member
Length: 9 weeks
Course Includes: Boat operation safety, Basic navigation and piloting, seamanship, reading charts state, and federal regulations and short cruise
For more information:

Call Ken Scherzz at 912 925 3126 email kwsrhs@comcast.net or visit our website www.usps.org/localusps/tybee

Inshore Fishing Report
Straight From the Helm of Captain Jack McGowan

When coming off Spring tides fishing is improving! Big tides in the evenings slowed fishing due to strong currents, muddy water and strong wind. Strong winds can exacerbate high evening high tides. Fishermen could catch fish in lee shores and in areas with slower currents. In these areas the bite was mostly small redfish, sea trout as some well flounder. Action was fair. The shark/tarpon bite slowed as well. Sharks generally are believed to have fair to poor eye sight. Muddy water can make finding bait nearly impossible for most any fish. Typically ladyfish rise to the challenge of strong currents and muddy water. Ladyfish have large eyes with likely excellent sight. A drop that might typically produce sea trout in clean water is producing ladyfish in dirty water. Ladyfish can be hoot to catch! Handling this fish is another story. Put a wet towel over the fish. Ladyfish are extremely slimy. A ladyfish if it does not throw the hook can fight itself to its death. Reel fast just keep up with a lady! Use a rubber mesh landing net in lieu of nylon net. This will help keep the slime coat on the fish. After netting when you grab the fish (with the wet towel) turn it up side down. The fish should momentarily stop its crazy antics. Quickly remove the hook and chunk it back to fight another day.
It looks like a great year for redfish!

Salutations to the Georgia DNR and to the CCA of Georgia.

In short we are seeing lots of small first year redfish in the creeks and rivers. A lot of these fish are likely a result of a program conducted by DNR and the CCA to study the efficacy of stocking redfish in Warsaw sound. In short this is something every coastal fisherman needs to get behind! A tangible way is to communicate to both organizations that we are seeing benefits and that the program is of great value to our fishery. The Redfish Rally is a tournament, which is designed like all tournaments to have fun, but more specifically it generates needed funds for this program. My encouragement is for all interested in redfish on our coast participate in the tournament or at least sign for the tournament or even better make a contribution greater than the entry fee or consider turning your prize back in to be used again for this program and last but not least ask the DNR about participating in the fin clipping program or carcass recovery program. A healthy redfish population is vital to our fishery. Do all you can to get behind the Peach State Redfish Initiative!

Captain Jack McGowan’s Tarpon Take

The bite this summer has been good! During a recent CCA tarpon tournament several boats landed and released several tarpon. We are having a good tarpon season! Several boats have landed four or five in an outing. This is great fishing! Landing one tarpon takes some doing. Landing several means you’re around fish and you’re doing a lot things right! This year we’ve had a lot big ocean pogies come into the sounds. As a result the tarpon bite has been better than the last several years. The bite can still be mercurial. Meaning fish are here one day and gone the next. When the bait is in (the sounds), the fish (tarpon) will close by. When tarpon have vanished there are likely some around you. Look for tarpon on rips, passes and cuts around the sand bars, bait (large ocean menhaden) and big birds (pelicans) crashing the bait. When schools of menhaden are being crashed from above it’s likely there is an intense food chain below with tarpon, sharks and jacks present. Sharks can thick and bites instantaneous and intense! Anticipate the shark/tarpon action to be strong throughout August!

Get Out Your Tide Book and Take Notes!

Tides for the second week in August looks good! If weather permits there should plenty of opportunity to fish during the week. Bite should be good for small red fish, sea trout, flounder, shark/tarpon and jacks. Larger redfish can be caught, but as the flats heat up look for larger reds in deeper water. Lots of trash fish around so have plenty on hand. On the other there is lots of shrimp in the rivers and creeks. Small trash fish that you would normally discard could be great bait for shark/tarpon. Keeping some trash fish can mean the difference in landing a big fish. Recently we kept some bait stealers and later converted those small ones for some large ones. So you never know. You can spend a lot of time and gas searching for bait with a cast net or just a few minuets fun fishing. By the way those who have been concerned about the croakers can sleep easy. Eight and nine inch croakers are seemingly everywhere. In short the cycle for croakers is definitely up! This is a good thing!
Hope this report is of help and of interest! Remember to practice catch and release!

Good fishing! Capt. Jack McGowan

Inshore Spotted Sea Trout Bite

The inshore spotted sea trout bite continues to amaze me, because as you all know it’s in the heat of the summer. It’s my opinion that this is one of our great inshore catching secrets that not only does no one like to except, but doesn’t believe in the first place. I can’t tell you how many inshore calls I get from customers asking, “when is the spotted sea trout biting the best?” And before I can give the right answer of, “it’s pretty good right now!” They say, “I know it’s not good till the last of the fall season!” The bottom line is this for those that will read, it’s good now leading to the fact that it will be better later!”

For those that want to take a charter, you know to just give us a call and we will book you up! (912 897 4921 or fishjudy2@.com) However, for those that want to catch their own during this time frame, here are a few suggestions:

I must say this hundreds of times, but it’s oh so true, “to catch a fish it’s best to know a little about them!” During this time spotted sea trout can pretty much be caught as they are in the cooler times. However, it’s the frame of mind that the fisherman has when targeting them that needs to be changed. Firstly, I have already said, “they are here and ready to bite your hook!” Since we have gotten that out of the way, fishermen already know to start looking. My suggestion is to come up with a plan. If that sounds like too much work and not enough fishing, then go “fishing wild!”

Making a plan is where you look at the tides, moon phase, look at past records, or call up the old memories banks to provide the details of one of those great catching days. In other words if you are going to fish the Wilmington River area, have plenty of spots to choose from. The reason being is there might be another fisherman already there and the fish might not be. At least if either happens you can move on to plan B. The bottom line is to pre-pick your spots and fish all points from your boat. The means from the bank direction right on around to the deepest area behind you back to where you started in the first place.

Since it’s hot trout prefer the coolest area, which during this time is going to be near the bottom. With that being said, “keep your bait as near the strike zone as possible.” This means that it’s best to use some sort of quick adjustable cork so that you can change you depth fished fast. There is no time for re-rigging unless it’s absolutely necessary. Once you find the fish you want to be able to act, which means, “Start catching them.”

Fishing Wild can have several meaning when applying it to inshore fishing. This boils down to the fact that you load up your gear and head out without a plan. The also works most of the time!

A few tips on how to get the best scent from natural baits used

If you are using live shrimp I suggest crushing the head a bit. This really gets the juices going. When using fresh caught fish such as croaker, whiting, blue fish, menhaden or mullet I suggest cutting the head off behind the intestinal cavity. In other words remove the tail section, which has the least amount of scent value. The best way to hook this piece of bait of is to stick the hook through the eye socket or from the backside up toward the head. Most fish prefer taking in headfirst when eating on the run!

Mr. and Mrs. Jack Crevelle are here!
August 12, 2008
This date was a beautiful day offshore! I guess you could call it the “clam before the storm.” We started out trolling for Spanish mackerel with four light tackle rod/reel set-ups with Clark spoons in tow. We immediately hooked up two fish; never saw them, because they broke our leaders taking the spoons with them. I re-rigged, same thing happened, but this time I lost three spoons. My customer’s visiting from Texas probably thought I didn’t know what I was doing. Even I was beginning to wonder. And then it happened, large 10 to 25 pound Jack crevalle along with large Spanish mackerel and snake kings starting surface schooling. Bottom line to this report is if your leaders keep breaking “Size Up!”

Artificial Reef Report

I am always talking about trolling for, especially during this time, Spanish mackerel. This is a fun fish to catch, offers up some great action, and basically is good to eat. You can troll or cast into surface schools and just about catch them every time. With all of this being said, this fish can be labeled “catching assessable at this time!”

Here’s where I want to make a feel changes in regards to tackle used. I am always suggesting when trolling to use the “Clark Spoon.” My best size has always been 2 to 21/2 inch. These spoons work great, because when pulled they do a great job of imitating the bait that this fish is chasing. I’m talking about he ever-popular bait fish “glass minnow.” This is one baitfish that got it’s name rightfully so, because you when you look at them you can see right through them. It really is a sight to see. However, most of the time my customers are too busy looking at their fish caught to stop and examined the bait. However, once I bring this to their attention “they are all eyes on this usual bait!”

I have always suggested when using planers that you go with 20 pound test monofilament line as your leader size. This size leader seems to put the fish’s eye on the spoon and not what it’s attached too. Well, it’s time to do a change up. I’m not saying to completely forget about the 20-pound test leader usage, just put it in the back of your “tackle used later mind!”

Over the pass few weeks I have lost a lot of Clark spoons. One morning I lost five before I could think straight. So therefore I change up and went with 50-pound test monofilament leaders instead of 20-pound test. Here’s what happened, “I caught bigger fish!”

The bottom line to this suggestion is the fact that sometimes “change ups” are good and they certainly do pay off! In this case, we have been hooking up and catching some of the largest Spanish mackerel as well as snake kings. Even a seasoned captain, such as me, has to step outside of the same old box, to catch a fish!

Scattered Live Bottom Before the Snapper Bank

Captain Scott Abernathy and crew fished a piece of live bottom, which is located about 25 miles off the Warsaw Sea buoy. The first thing that they did was to start with trolling, which turned out to be a catching event. While trolling Drone spoons behind #2 and #3 planer they caught king mackerel, Spanish mackerel and Bonita. This boils down to the fact that they caught fish with not a thing but “pulled steel!” When this bite slowed they started bottom fishing and caught black sea bass, vermilion, hognose snapper and triggerfish. While making their last drift a curious “Mahi Mahi” AKA dolphin fish was hooked up and landed.

As Captain Scott watched the dolphin fish cruise around the boat his mind was fixed on trying to get it to eat something. The first thing that they did was to throw out some small pieces of cut bait. This kept the fish’s attention for a few seconds, but as dolphin go their attention span is short. With the deck crew moving quickly to come up with a plan, Captain Scott grabbed the wash down hose and began spraying it on the surface. This splashing appeared to look like a school of small fish on the surface. This put the fish’s attentions on the so-called artificial school of bait giving the crew time to “get more bait ready!” With the dolphin ready to kill and eat it quickly advanced finding pieces of floating baits, which by the way had a hook inside. The hook up took place before the fish knew it! The rest is catching history!

Freshies Report
As the Worm Turns!

The old plastic worm is a hard to beat lure especially when it comes to large mouth bass fishing during the hot times. However, as with anything suggested there is most always a twist needed to apply to make it work best. We all know that working the worm takes slow moves at best. After all they don’t have fins, tail, or any other working parts. So therefore making them look as natural as possible is the “game played!” Well, it seems that some freshwater fishermen have found a new way to work the old slow plastic worm. They don’t thread it with a worm hook so as to make it look as real as possible. The fact of the matter is they hook it up in the middle leaving “both ends just a dangling!” According to reports received this wacky way of hooking up the old plastic worm makes a large mouth bass crazy enough to eat it! That’s all I have to say about that!

Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not!”

What I know about wine!
Part Two
Hurricane Peach Wine

This was probably the cheapish nastiest tasting wine that ever existed. However, all alcoholic beverages had their place in the drinking community. A small bottle of Hurricane Peach wine, when purchased at Woo’s store located on Wilmington Island cost $2.50. I ought to know, bad tasting or not, it certainly did have a “powerful kick.” The fact of the matter is you got it from ends, “the first effects and the after effects!” One big headache sometimes referred to as a “hangover!”

I don’t know if this type of wine exists on the package store shelves any longer. It wasn’t bottled in a regular so called “wine bottles.” It came in ˝ pint, pint, and quart size liquor bottle types. I guess it came this way for easy “carrying and quick sipping!” This was one wine company that knew their demographics!

Thanks for Reading!

Captain Judy