My wife and I moved to west ashley recently and I’ve slowly started trying the waters closer to my house. Its interesting trying to figure out an area that you’ve been near all your life, but never fished. I can find fish in the cooper, wando, and icw on the regular, but finding the reds in the stono is something I haven’t done until now. Still with a honey-do list a mile long, I’ve managed to sneak out a few times and wet a line. The first few times out were only scouting with Boscoe the wonderpup, but this time I promised myself I’d drown a bait and see what happened. Finger mullet were a plenty in the Stono on low tide last week. I took the biggest ones and found me a nice little creek mouth with abundant oysters and baitfish lurking just beneath the stained brown water. I sat for fifteen minutes not expecting much on my first attempt, but to my surprise a nice healthy redfish was hungry and willing to end the life of an unsuspecting mullet.
Boscoe got a kick out of it.
Spent a lot of the day admiring the locals…
30lb braid proved to be too much for this guy, but he did give me a run for my money peeling off 150 yards of powerpro and into my mono backing before I realized I should get serious and start to fight this fish.
A good ten minute fight and I had him boatside, my first Stono River fish, hopefully of many more to come. He measured just shy of 32", but who’s counting, he was a dang nice fish.
Picked up and moved on to several other spots trying good looking places out, but no others wanted to take the bait.
Nice fish; there is no shortage of overslot reds in the Stono. I know where you were at. Current and dirty water can be tough there with moon tides. The shorelines to the south are very productive, but you need to move around depending on the tide as the reds move from one ambush spot to the next.
Yes he is, not many people know about lakelands. I haven’t seen another one in Charleston, but that doesn’t mean much. We’ve had an airdale going on six years now and wanted a pal for him. Roscoe and Boscoe are 90 lbs and 16 lbs and look like father and son. They get along great, most of the time it’s the little one that rules the roost.