My vacation plans for June got pretty messed up as various parties dropped out from planned adventures, so with only six days left to enjoy the time off, I opted to go chase some redfish in the Charleston low country. I had been looking for a fishing boat for a long time, and finally found the one I’d been waiting for there (South Carolina), and a sea-trial to test her out promised a great ending to a perfect week of fishing if everything panned out.
I flew back to my crash pad in Bethesda on Monday, and spent the evening getting all my fishing and camping gear in order before turning in early. The kayak was on top of the car at first light, and it was off on the ten-hour drive south on I-95 by 5:30am. Without weekend traffic to fight, and by working around rush-hour madness in the Washington, DC, Richmond, and Raleigh metroplexes, I pulled into the Charleston County campground at St. James Island around 4pm, and had camp set up in short order. From there I headed out to Folly Island to scout my selected launch point, possible beach fishing opportunities, and a local bar or two for a little entertainment and cable TV so as to stay abreast (no pun intended) of the Women’s World Cup (soccer). I made it back to the tent early for some rest, which didn’t come easily with a heat index of 105*F - it took a wet towel draped over the top of me to provide enough cooling to sleep every night, though conditions did improve slightly over the course of the next several days.
An early get-up on Wednesday morning was required to take advantage of the three-knot incoming tide; my game plan to ride the rising water back into the meandering creeks feeding the Folly River. A cresting tide of 5.9’ would allow me to stake out redfish and sea-trout on the oyster beds, before working back further into the grassy flats to sight-fish for the former at the top of the flood. First light found me rigging the kayak at the Folly Island bridge launch ramp, and as the sun rose I was on my way.
[img]http://www.charlestonfishin
The Folly River marshes are a labyrinth of winding passages where it would be easy to get lost or end up stranded in a dead-end estuary. I made up eight charts from Google Earth photographs, with GPS coordinates marked for major turn points, places of interest (i.e. oyster beds, promising flat entrances, and major channels to fish on the ebb tide), and escape routes. Prominent landmarks like water towers, islands, and power lines are visible from a long way off in the low country, but there’s nothing like a good GPS fix to bolster your confidence and to prevent wasting time with unwanted detours. A foot or more of water gained and lost for each hour of the tide makes a BIG difference when it comes to chasing redfish, and you definitely don’t want to get stranded high and dry in the grass and have to wait for the next tide.
At low tide the oyster beds are easy to find, and getting there ahead of the fish allows you to anchor up and watch for them to push in. I made big money on the trip by finding shell beds next to creek mouths, the ones with shrimp popping about being gold mines.
Once you located shrimp hanging around the oysters, all you had to do was watch for the wakes and tell-tale dorsal fins and bronzed backs of the redfish to show up, most of the arriving fish preferring to sneak along the muddy banks before blasting into their prey. A measured cast with a WF floating line and 15’, 20# FC leader was the best setup, and a Kwan shrimp pattern with gold or black bead-chain eyes the number one pattern in the skinny water. Once the water level rose a couple of feet and you couldn’t see the fish anymore, it was time to throw a larger 3-4" SF shrimp, working the edges of the grass and oyster beds with blind casts. I didn’t find any of the larger bull redfish I was really looking for in the creeks, but there were more than enough 3-6 pound models to bend your rod!
There were plenty of small speckled sea-trout hanging around the creek mouths too, and when you found one there were usually at least a dozen more to be had before they moved on. The good news-bad news thing is that they like to school with their peers, so if you aren’t happy with the size of the fish you’re catching, it’s time to move on.
It doesn’t take long for the oyster beds to disappear with the rising tide. When the water level reaches the base of the spartina grass, it’s time to push up into skinnier water. Who said fishing isn’t a spectator sport? 
Despite moving as deep as I could onto the flats, I never really found the clear water I was looking for where spotting the redfish would be easier. The locals target tides over the 6’ level for sight fishing, and I think if I’d gone further back into the low country and away from the heavier currents (i.e away from the ocean inlets) I’d have had better luck in that regard. The good news is that my new Malibu Stealth 12 kayak is very easy to stand up in, and very stable to pole and cast from when on your feet. All that was missing both days on the flats were the fish!
Two hours into the ebb tide it was time to head back towards the launch point before the tide reversed and I had to fight both the building sea breeze and incoming water. I found a few more redfish along the banks of the main river arteries, but still not the larger ones I was seeking. A pair of large thunderstorm cells parked themselves on top of Charleston, and the gusty 25 knot winds made for an earlier than planned end to the fishing day, but allowed for a little touring of Folly Island before dinner instead. In the path of hurricanes moving up the east coast, most of the homes on the island are built on pilings to keep them out of the reach of the surge tides.
Styles ranged from the classic Southern designs
to less formal beach models,
to the more elaborate, full-time abodes. Something for everyone and every budget.
A nice seafood dinner with a couple of cold beers put the finishing touch on a great day, and it was back to camp for a shower and some much-needed shuteye.
Day 2 was mostly a carbon copy of the first, except that I had an extra hour of flood tide to work with that allowed me to push further east into the marshes. It started with hardly a breath of wind as I launched with some of the locals.
I found a few pods of dolphin feeding in the main river as I headed “upstream” for skinnier, clearer waters. You can hear them coming a long way off on a still morning when they surface to breathe or break the water chasing their meal. When redfish pack tightly in their winter schools, I’m told the mammals will push them into very shallow water, even at the risk of going high and dry themselves.
The fishing; well the catching part that is; was fantastic all morning - a good mix of small redfish and trout eagerly munching on shrimp and crab patterns. The thunderstorms began to build much earlier than the day before, with the convective heating of downtown Charleston helping to generate a 15 knot sea-breeze by 11am. I wanted to ride the tide westward to the mouth of the Folly River, and left the spartina grass flats by noon to fish my way to the river’s confluence with the Atlantic Ocean. The larger redfish had to be somewhere other than in the marshes, and I was sure the sandbars and jetties near the beaches would hold a few of them, based on a local guide’s fishing reports from the previous month that detailed an inlet excursion with clients from New Jersey. Though they were using popping corks and live shrimp, the fact that they were using LARGER shrimp for bait than I was seeing in the feeder creeks; ones they captured with a cast net off the outer beach before baiting up; suggested bigger fish as well (the “big fish eat big food” theory).
Enroute to the river mouth, I got sidetracked for more than an hour when I found a shallow mud flat with lots of flounder feeding in about three feet of water. I rigged my SF shrimp pattern on a floating line setup, suspended two and a half feet below a styrofoam strike indicator, and had a ball catching the 2-4 pound flat ties. If I had a cooler, I probably could have held a pretty good fish fry in town that evening to be sure!
I had to leave them biting, and made it down to the ocean with half an hour of ebb tide to spare. The channel cuts across the river mouth were quite visible, and I made a mental note of those on the Folly Island side for the next day’s beach/surf fishing. The water visibility improved markedly as mud flats gave way to sandy bottom, and I even caught a glimpse of a few nice redfish before anchoring up on one of the mid-bay sandbars for a late lunch.
Even had a lunch buddy, who wanted to play with my biodegradable orange peels!
Not a whole lot of water left to float your boat here at low tide!
I fished the area on foot for about an hour without any luck, before heading back to take out for the evening. As with the previous day, the thunderstorms over Charleston didn’t threaten Folly Island, though they did kick up the wind to a brisk 25 knots by late afternoon - not much good for fly fishing, but great for kiteboarding or staying cool at the beach! “Downtown” Folly Island was buzzing with early arrivals stealing in a three-day weekend, so I called it a night around 10pm after some pasta and a huge meatball gyro, washed down with ice cold beer, and finished off with an ice cream sundae!
Leaving the island that evening, I was so tired that I barely took notice of the fire department flag being flown at half-mast, nor of the one back at the campground entry booth when I re-entered the park. Listening to the Charleston Christian radio station KHIS early the next (Friday) morning as I was breaking down camp, the whole story and horrific details of the shootings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church came to light, literally driving me to my knees. The “Evil” in the Garden had reared its ugly head again, though not by way of fiction this time! The radio station was having a banner signing in support of the church and those who had suffered the personal losses of their loved ones at the Chick-Fil-A just down the highway from where I was staying, and I was overwhelmed to see the parking lot crammed full of the cars (at 6:30 in the morning!) of caring individuals when I arrived; most stopping in on their way to work to join in empathy with others they didn’t even know, and to offer their prayers and condolences for the fallen. To see so much good come out of this tragedy was inspiring beyond belief, as the whole city rose together with a unified voice of forgiveness, and a determination to move forward in healing this and many other old wounds of the past. More remarkable still, that the families of the victims were able to face the murder at his arraignment just hours after his capture l
It was a quiet and reflective drive back out to Folly Island to catch the beach action on the ebb tide, and I passed some of the time waiting for the turn of the tide by rinsing off all my kayak gear and salty clothes. It was already sunny and 85*F with 15 knots of SSW breeze at 9am, and everything was dry and packed up by the time I had changed out my leader for a stiffer one, and picked out a size 2 tan jiggy crab to tempt the redfish with.
As expected, the river mouth at the west end of Folly Island looked a whole lot different from the previous afternoon. Most of the beachfront was gone, right up to the grassy bird nesting areas,
