Fishing Thanksgiving Week...

We had our 5th annual Family Thanksgiving at IOP…Rented a house with a dock, ate, drank, fished and drank, fished, ate.

The first year we did this (5 years ago) we caught approximately 125 reds and 75 trout…Last year was the worst, but mainly due to weather, fog to be exact.

This year was pretty good, especially with the big tides. Did not catch big numbers of reds, but most of what we caught were big fish. If you toss out a few ratz, the rest averaged 7 or 8 pounds, with several 12 pounders landed.

Falling tides were ok around docks with cut mullet and mm. As the tide got lower the flats were covered with good sized schools, but for the most part not real aggressive feeders. Picked at them with Gulp Jerk Shad and Captain Mike Able got a nice one OTF Tuesday morning.

Did one charter on Friday morning while the family was shopping, etc. Had a great crew from Summerville…8 year old Tyler was the star landing a rat and then a pair of 10ish pounders, the second one all by himself. Pop and Grandpop did pretty good also. We loss several nice fish to pilings, oysters and grass…but it was a good trip considering the tide and the breakoffs.

The big bite for me this past week was just as the tide rose to and into the grass…half a blue crab brought aggressive bites and big fish. This was the nice part about having a dock, we could fish that 1 to 2 hour window by just jumping on the boat and jumping off an hour or so later…Plus we got all of our crabs free every morning from the traps set off the dock.

We reelly enjoy these trips…my adult children can still work if they want/need to but be there in the evenings…no airports or long drives. If we had done this in the keys it would have costs triple or more versus what it cost local…plus someone most likely would not have been able to come due to work/school. The 6 mile drive home was tiring, but I took a nap when I got here.

reelly…

www.LowTideRedfish.com

Sounds like a great way to spend Thanksgiving.

Sounds fun!!..Glad you got to be with your family and make memories!!..Here’s to many more!!

livin life one day at a time!!!
2006 Seafox172
05 Mercury90hp(saltwater)

We just got home from our 4th year of doing the same thing. Only exception is we rent a small house at the marina for me, my wife and 2 girls. We invite the rest of the family on all sides to come and rent a place of their own. I think we ended up with like 20 folks hanging out each night. Inshore bite was tough with the 7’ of water rolling in and out. I should have tried me some crab or cut mullet but am sort of hard headed I guess. Caught some reds each day though, handful OTF. Not a trout to be found all week, but was not trying real hard to catch them. Normally though end up with enough for a fish fry but not this year.

Great weather all week though, lots of flip flops, shorts and Tshirts. No big jackets!

Very very thankful…

We didn’t do it this year or last, but for about 5 years before that we rented the same house with a dock just down from the IOP connector. I brought the boat and kayaks and we would all meet down there and spend the week together. Kids had a ball fishing and hanging out on the dock all day and would come out for turns fishing on the boat. Nights we would play cards or head over to Windjammer or this little place on SI.

Happened to be fishing in that area this past Friday and drove past only to find a group of about 10 people hanging out on “our” dock drinking beer and fishing…really pissed me off, :smiley:

'07 198 DLX Carolina Skiff
FS90 Suzuki