As part of our continued involvement in the site we will link and lump together some reports for the local area. Each week will have a new header and we will just add reports to the one link so it will all be in one place. They may be inshore, offshore, fly fishing, whatever… Keep in mind as you read them that we are in Hilton Head, not Charleston. Likely some good information can be had if you read between the lines. With 4 boats booking out of Southern Drawl Outfitters you are sure to find a trip to suit your liking.
5/5/14- JigSkinz (shallow to deep jigging)
Fished a lot of ocean yesterday and caught plenty of fish, just not really our targets. AJ’s shallow, a couple gear failures deeper, 2 bent hooks and at least 1 broken hook. I got freight trained on one wreck, big AJ likely. Moved deep got a few grouper and a mahi while moving around. Fun day but seemed like work. Water was a bit green and still a bit chilly. With 90 degrees forecasted for the week it will only get better. Tons of bait on the beach which is nice.
Really loving the new Black Hole jigging rods. Justin can attest after boating 2 AJ’s on his traditional gear. Then I gave him a jigging rod and he says, “How come this is so easy?”
I fished Monday on the Papa Bear with Capt. Michael Perry. With multiple reports of a strong dolphin bite in 600’+, we were a little disappointed when we found ourselves in 150’ at sunrise. Our concerns were put to rest immediately with a nice bft. Over the next hour we picked away at few more bft and small dolphin before heading out deeper. We made it out as deep as 750’ but never found the strong edge we had been told about. Maybe we should have gone deeper. However, we still managed to catch more dolphin than I cared to spread out and count. It seemed like we would double up about every 20-30 minutes until we decided to bottom fish our way home. The b-liners, triggerfish and seabass were plentiful, but the groupers eluded us.
Wednesday morning I had some clients that wanted to “go for broke” on a chance to sight cast a cobia in the river. They were on a business convention and only had 2hrs of actual fishing time. A long shot at best! With about 30min left in the trip, we finally see a pair. About a 50lb female and a 20lb male, on the surface moving fast. Long story short: we came back empty handed! Note to self- evaluate customers casting ability prior to seeing cobia!
Wednesday afternoon: After failing to connect with a cobia on my morning charter, I grabbed lunch and my fly rod and head back out for slack high tide. After an hour of searching, I finally found a pair cruising down a tide rip. I made my cast and the biggest one turne
