First off, I?d like to thank all of you who take the time to post your tips and reports. True southern hospitality. We started our trip in the Columbia area and did some fishing around lake Murray, didn?t catch any bass but I did manage to land a nice cat fish. Our next stop was the Ashley River just west of 526. We didn?t have much time to fish our first day, so we worked the dock and saw grass during the top half of the incoming tide with a plethora of popping corks and plastics, mirrolures, spoons, DOA?s, pretty much my whole box and not a bite I was stunned and pretty deflated but you can?t judge a spot on half a tide. Next day, with cast net in hand we aimed to change our luck. Using my 12? ?? we had no problem catching nice shrimp and small menhaden for bait. The action started to heat up near the bottom of the outgoing tide. A few reds started working the edge of the grass within a cast. My girl hooked up on a popping cork and shrimp. Stephanie battled the red to the dock for some pics and released him. I put a little bunker on my rod and cast into a large eddy then set my rod down to drop the bait bucket in the water, boom slam splash rod gone noooo! I could still see the cork so I jumped in and tracked it down and hand lined the nice redfish to the bank for a release then back tracked and found my rod in the oysters, I have to admit it was pretty funny.
Next two days we spent our nights in downtown Charleston and days in folly beach area. The first morning we walked down to lighthouse inlet and fished a few hours with live finger mullet during the outgoing tide. No luck for us, but we did see a good size bonnet head landed up the beach. Later that day we headed to the beautiful folly pier to check out the kingfish/tarpon zone, no action but very impressive setup. Our last day we headed to bowman so Steph could stand up paddle board, and I was very pleased to see a great little fishing dock. With some advice from the staff I cast netted some grunts and croakers for bait and got lucky enough to bag a
Your rod being yanked off the dock is funny but happens more than you know. I tossed out a line a couple years ago, set the rod down (in the boat) and turned to grab a bottle of water…yep, off she went. I was fishing a jighead so no cork to follow. Almost new Shimano Symetre on an All-Star Snook rod. I was pretty bummed. A guy on an adjacent dock saw the whole thing and rather than laugh, came down with a rod/reel with a weighted treble hook. 2 casts and he had it. Man was I thankful.
Anyway, glad you guys had a good time. I have done some fishing in the Hernando Beach/Weekie Wachee area. Man that whole area there is really pretty but other than offshore, the fishing was tough. Safe travels home.
“Apathy is the Glove in Which Evil Slips It’s Hand”.