Ok to start off I’ve been fishing Charleston area waters for a good while now out to the tips of the jetties. We owned a 20’ bay boat and used it for all the inshore fishing Charleston has to offer although I’m more proficient around the jetties and mainly target reds. Recently reef fishing and offshore trolling/ bottom fishing has caught my attention so we moved up to a larger boat with all the necessary equipment to travel out a little farther.
I’m very safety conscience and always keep a close eye on the weather when venturing out past the tips but I’m finding every site/ report I use to be nearly useless. A prime example came today… All week I watch the weather. I have multiple sites and apps on my phone and I use the buoy info offered on this site. ALL sites said 7mph today with gusts to 14. Wave height for the past two days leading up to when I stepped on the boat today said waves around 1ft and 7-9 second intervals. So I’m expecting a beautiful day reef fishing right? WRONG! We got to the nearshore reef and were in waves big enough that they were very close to breaking over the bow of the boat! So just for kicks I pull out my phone and check all the weather info again and it’s still telling me I should be in 1ft waves. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you some of the waves we dipped into were at least 5 footers. It made for a miserable day, we didn’t even get a line in the water and got beat to death on the way back until we cleared the jetties.
So the weather is the same for tomorrow except warmer. Still only calling for two ft waves pretty spread out. Is there a more reliable report you guys use or do you just have to run to the tips of the jetties and make your decision then? Days like today suck. I wait all week in anticipation of fishing on my days off and it’s a huge waste of time and money when they miss the reports that much. I would have grabbed some mud minnows and shrimp and went looking for reds and trout had they even come close to getting it right. Thanks for any help you can off
Theres a lot more to it than just wave height. Wind speed and direction plus certain tidal movements can make for a tougher day in a smaller boat.
Just so you know, the area just outside the jetties, as in the Charleston Nearshore, can get very sloppy very quickly, even in otherwise ideal conditions. Truth of the matter is that if you were to have ventured another five miles offshore or perhaps took a ride out to the Charleston Sixty, you would have been in lake like conditions. 1’ at 9 seconds is very nice, but when you get that funnel effect coming out of or in to the jetties mouth, that water chops up pretty good most of the time. It’s typically the roughest part of our day when fishing offshore. That’s just the way it is.
It’s tough, but the easiest ride going offshore is with the wind at your back riding the tide out. This tends to increase the period ams space the waves out more, or so it feels that way. This rarely happens though. If the wind and current are going opposite directions, the water gets choppy. It decreases the period. 1-2’ @ 10 is nice and easy. 1-2’ @ 4 is though at times for small boats.
Thanks for the info. So if we head out tomorrow, where would you suggest? Would the anglers reef or Capers be better? Supposed to be near identical wind conditions, just a little warmer
I would suggest if you head out to the Charleston 60, go through the channel opening on the south jetty through Dynamite hole and avoid the mouth of the Harbor. I completely agree with Sailfish, the mouth is the roughest part of our trips when coming back in every time.
We did the same thing you did yesterday. Sometimes the weatherman is just wrong. Was supposed to go light and variable wind at 1pm yesterday. Instead it picked up to 15 kts. Just the way it is sometimes.
I passed a few bay boats running back in as we were headed out. Didn’t look like a good sign. we had a much better day on Monday although around 1 it started getting nasty again.
