This report will be a quick Summer 2020 fishing recap. We apologize for the lack of updates and reports over the past few months. With the pandemic essentially shutting down our spring business, as of May we were able to turn it all around. Fortunately, we have been as busy as possible since. Updates and reports will be more frequent, social media will be updated several times a week, and tips and videos will be regularly posted over the next several months. That being said, and with all the craziness in this world that we live in, let us discuss the important things like FISHING!
Tripletail
This summer has been a bit different with the global pandemic and an overturned freighter in the middle of our inlet. Fishing started out with a bang in mid April with an excellent tripletail bite. Plenty of plus sized versions happily floated off the beach and were eager to eat a well placed shrimp. As May rolled around the larger fish were still around along with plenty smaller tripletail to fill in the gaps. As I write this report there are still a good number of tripletail out there for the sight fishing enthusiast and as always marker fishing around slack tide has been producing some plus sized specimens as well.
Inshore
As with most of the fishing this spring and early summer, things started off a tad different than in years past. A typical March or April trout trip yields plenty of small trout with a handful of good ones in the mix. For whatever reason, this year the short fish were not as abundant, and instead we had steady fishing on very good quality sea trout. By no means was it the wide open action that we expect in the fall months, but if you fished hard and you would be rewarded with a quite a few 17 inch class fish.
Flounder fishing picked up a bit early and red fishing was as steady as it can be these days. We are seeing a good bit of yearling fish and more 30 plus inch fish up on the shallow flats. Hopefully that is all a positive sign for the future of our fishery.
We never really had a consistent beach bite this year for the speckled trout. However, overall the trout and inshore bite has been decent throughout the summer. Tailing redfish on the flood tides over the past couple of months have been as good as I’ve seen in quite some time. We have been seeing as well as catching quite a few tailing redfish in the grass that are north of the 30 inch mark. I even had a first time fly angler sight cast and land a redfish in the grass over the summer that measured a whopping 35.5 inches!
Flood Tide Action
We have some really good “flood” tides coming up in September, October, and November, so if you like the challenge of shallow water sight fishing for tailing redfish, give us a call asap HERE! Flood tides occur on the full and new moons and simply mean that the water is higher than normal. This encourages the reds to push way up into the shallow grass to feed. Marsh hen season begins next week. Hen hunting is best on the giant high tide cycles that we get along the Georgia coast in October and November. If you enjoy the idea wing shooting from a boat being poled along in the marsh grass, you definitely need to give this trip a shot. The Georgia Fishing Company has multiple captains’ with shallow water skiffs that are all ready to put you on shallow water reds and marsh hens this fall and winter
Nearshore
Summer 2020 fishing in our nearshore waters has been one for the books! It has been quality action whether you are fishing just off of the beach, or out on the wrecks and reefs within 20 miles.
Wrecks and Reefs
Cobia
Cobia showed up strong in May. These brown crab eaters are absolutely my favorite species to target on the wrecks and reefs. We had some excellent days targeting these fish throughout May, June, and July. The majority of the larger cobia were caught in May and early June in 2020.
Mackerel
King and Spanish Mackerel poured into our waters early this summer. The larger Spanish were bunched up in their usual spots. If you like to fish away from the crowd (ME), kingfish were really everywhere. Several days we were able to chum them up by dumping live baits over the side of the boat. I was worried about the mackerel jumping in the boat. We literally had kings of all sizes flying all over the place. We even caught our share of king mackerel on artificial lures this season.
Barracuda, spadefish, jack crevalle, bull redfish, red snapper, and black sea bass are a few of the other species that we regularly caught this summer while fishing these nearshore structures.
Beach Fishing
Beach Fishing is what we consider when we are fishing from the surf line out to approximately three miles offshore. This also includes our inlets and adjacent sounds. The main species that we pursue in this zone includes tarpon, bull redfish, jack crevalle, tripletail, and sharks.
Tarpon
Tarpon are no doubt the star of the show and personally my favorite gamefish to pursue in coastal Georgia. There is nothing like the bite and seeing these silver dinosaurs fly into the air when they realize that they ate the wrong bait. Captain Scott and I spend the majority of our summer fishing months chasing these fish with our anglers. We mainly sight fish our tarpon with artificial lures or fly fishing tackle. However we do fish for them with live bait from time to time as well.
Jack Crevalle
The Giant Jack crevalle that cruise our beaches and sounds are likely the most underrated gamefish in Georgia’s coastal waters. These fish average 25-35 pounds. They cruise on top in schools with their fins out of the water and annihilate topwater plugs and flies! Not only is it an epic bite, but the fight will leave you sore and bruised every time. Our Jacks were spotty for most of this summer, however August and September have been a different story. Best of all we have had the vast majority of the big schools of crevalle very close to home.
Sharks
Summer 2020 fishing for sharks has been about as good as is expected in our coastal waters. Plenty of large Blacktip and spinner sharks have been cruising behind the shrimp trawlers and eager to eat nearly any offering. Blacknose sharks have also been prevalent behind the shrimp boats. If you want to tangle with a true sea monster, grown bull sharks have been plentiful on most nearshore structure. Some days it’s almost impossible to get your intended quarry past these guys.
Kids
Summer 2020 kids fishing has been very fun on our family outings. Large whiting were here in numbers well in to July, along with plenty of rays and smaller sharks of various varieties throughout the summer. I expect the whiting to fire back off as the water cools a bit. I also expect some surprise bull redfish to visit on the regular as well.
Stay tuned for future reports on our early fall fishing as well as updated reports from our Captains. Thanks for reading and tight lines!
-Capt. Rob