It’s Tarpon Time in Georgia!

We’ve already experienced some excellent Tarpon fishing this year as early as June. The fish are usually a bit harder to pattern early in the season but we have had some days where hundreds of Tarpon have been around the boat showing out. The trouble for me with Tarpon fishing early in the season is that most of the time I don’t have the clientele to really dig hard and work on the fish. It can take patience and a willingness to fail at times. During summer vacation there are a lot of 4 hour trips and a lot of my customers could care less about Tarpon, if they even know what a Tarpon is. And that’s OK.

However, I know the hardcore Tarpon people are coming, and if things stay the same or even get better, you might be in for a treat! Although we haven’t done a lot of fishing with live baits, we’ve taken the time to stop and throw plastics at some Tarpon and been successful doing so. For me, that is the most fun way to do it, but it isn’t the easiest. I’m a bit ADD though and I prefer to be casting if I have the choice.

It’s important to book ahead if you want to get your Tarpon trip scheduled for August. We have 11 days that are still open as of this writing and a few partial days. Half day Tarpon trips can leave you disappointed so plan to fish 6 to 8 hours if you want to take it seriously.

Shark Fishing – Big Fish Excitement Without all the Work!

If Tarpon fishing sounds like a lot of fun to you, but you aren’t sure you are in for an all day hunt for some big fish, you may want to give Shark fishing a try. Not that there aren’t tough days from time to time when we shark fish, but it’s about as close to guaranteed as it gets. We are covered with Sharks this time of year and this is a great way to bend a rod. A half day trip is usually plenty if you have a group of 4 or less and if you have 5 or 6 people it still might be enough to make sure that everyone is thoroughly beat down.

Often times Sharks will put on a great aerial show and fights can extend beyond 30 minutes on some of the largest sharks. The typical size is 70 to 120 pounds.

Inshore Fishing – Plenty of Variety

Inshore fishing lately has been good, but the weather has been hot which usually means that there will be some inconsistency. That’s just part of fishing. You’ll have some great days, good days, and days where it’s just a grind. Some folks book inshore trips expecting to take home a cooler full of fish. Sometimes that happens, but that isn’t the goal. The goal is to have a lot of fun, and if you want to take enough fish home for a meal or two, no problem! Every now and then we get clients that put so much pressure on us to hunt for meat that we deter from the plan that would provide for the best experience so we can go find “meat fish”. 

With that being said, there is a lot of variety available right now. Trout, Redfish, Tripletail, Flounder, and Black Drum have all been regular targets. The Flounder fishing has been excellent and the amount of juvenile Redfish that we are catching right now gives us a lot of encouragement for winter Redfish trips. Trout fishing has been typical with a mix of good days and bad days as well as a mixture of good size fish and small fish.

If you want to do some light tackle inshore fishing, it’s not a bad time to go. Just know that there will be some days where we have to grind to get on some fish.

There is a new boat in the fleet!

I recently purchased a new skiff after going a year without a skinny water boat. This Maverick Mirage Micro Skiff will float in a light dew and pole silently into casting distance. If you are interested in flood tide Redfish trips, give us a call and we’ll look at days with the right tides. Get ready for this winter when the water clarity is amazing and the Redfish go ballistic!

If flats fishing is your thing, this boat can get the job done. If you have done your fair share of fishing from technical poling skiffs, you know that they don’t exactly ride all that great, and they aren’t very fast. That’s the sacrifice you make to float in super shallow water. So if you decide to book a flats fishing trip, just know ahead of time that we might get beat up a little on the way. The good news is that when we stop to fish, we can get to them!