From 7/12/01</font id=blue>
By: Captain Rick Hiott
It was a day of fishing that was going as planned. My girlfriend, Eve Tobias, and I were waiting on Matt Fletcher, V.P. of Sales for Shakespeare and a good friend of mine, to come down from Columbia with his good friend Henrick, an independent sales representative. Leaving out of Wappoo cut, in Charleston, South Carolina, we headed out to the harbor to find menhaden, excellent bait for catching an assortment of large fish including large red drum. After talking with friends on the radio, we were informed that large schools of menhaden had been seen behind Morris Island. So, we headed in that direction for the day’s bait. I threw the cast net for about thirty minutes catching enough menhaden for a day of fishing. Then we started out to the grillage, my favorite place for giant red drum, which is an area off of Sullivan’s’ Island in the Charleston harbor. This area is well known for catching giant red drum, black drum, stingrays and sharks. It ranges in depth from the beach to thirty-five feet deep before dropping off into the harbor channel. When we arrived, the tide was coming in and almost high. After setting anchor we put our lines out, staggering from left to right. Four rods were down, carolina-rigged with eight ounce, egg sinkers and about four feet of fifty-pound monofilament line. On the other end of the leader was a 6/0 live bait hook with an average sized menhaden. This is the way I rig my lines whenever I fish this area
Here we sat waiting, waiting for that big monster. After a while, the current slowed and the tide was high. This was our break since no fish had been caught. We were starving so we headed to Shem Creek to get some lunch. Besides, most fishermen know that very few fish are caught during a slack tide.
After lunch we went out along with the tide, back to the same area we left before lunch. I had a good feeling that the fish would be there once we arrived. Now, Henrik would see what it was like to catch the reall