I has been at least a month since getting out on the water. The new house has me loaded up with projects. I am really thankful for the help my friends have given me…above and beyond. I have had my father-in-law with us this past week and we have been working him like a dog. Again, thankfully he likes to stay busy and work…he has been a mason his whole life so I just give him some tools and materials and let him go.
Sunday morning we took a break and got out to explore the Ashley. I have only fished the ashley a couple times briefly running back from the harbor. Since it is now my homewaters, it is time to step it up. Put in just past Magnolia Gardens and ran down to the lower river; Orangegrove creek area which seems to be a popular spot. Put down the trolling motor and worked a stretch of shoreline with a multitude of creek mouths. The full moon tide had the water stirred up and current was more than I like. Caught 2 short trout on the upcurrent side of come creek mouths with paddletails on jigheads. There was plenty of finger mullet around so threw some in the live well. At about mid tide I shifted to a spot that looked decent on satellite imagery. The closer I got to the spot, the more excited I got quickly realizing that all the ingredients were there…structure, current, bait, and enough water adjacent to it to position the boat.
Started tossing a Z-Man paddlerz against the oyster bank and on the fourth cast it gets hammered by a nice red and I passed the rod to my son. He fought it for about 30 seconds until it went on a run over the submerged portion of the oyster bank. My son is mad, especially with grandpa onboard. It is a new spot so I took some time to explain the situation and point out the current rip showing were the structure is and when you are fighting a red around structure there is not playing around and looking cool…be agressive and horse it away from the structure. A few more casts and I boat an upper slot red. My sons keeps casting while I set up a mullet under