Georgia and Florida 2009

[MuskieBait]

Oct 2, 2009

I started the day at 3am for my 6:30am flight. After another connection flight, I finally arrived in Savannah at 12pm. After picking up the rental car, I made a quick check-in and drop off at the hotel, and drove straight to Tybee Island Bait and Tackle for a non-resident license ($48 for one year…yikes!) and made my way to Tybee Pier with frozen shrimp and frozen finger mullet for bait. Here is the salt marsh that I passed by on the way to the pier.



When I arrived at the pier, someone was at the end fighting a large fish. It ended up being a large stingray with a wing span of about 4 feet!



I used a 2-hook bottom rig with 4oz pyramid sinker on the medium 7’ spinning rod. The mainline was 8lb and the leader for the bottom rig was 15lb. This was my rod to fish with shrimp. On my shark rod, I used circle hooks with the bottom rig as well but it is fished with 30lb mainline and leader with an UglyStik Tiger and a Jigmaster. This shark rod will be fished with cut mullet.

I went straight to the “T” of the pier where the water is the deepest. It didn’t take too long before I had a hit on the light rig…and I pulled in my first new species from Georgia. It was a 10” southern kingcroaker aka whiting (Menticirrhus americanus).



I had a few more light taps when I heard the bell on my heavy rod jiggled. I waited for the rod to load up and then the bells went nuts. I quickly put down the light rod and picked up the shark rod. The fish took some line on the light drag before I set it to a heavier setting to fight the fish. It ended up not being a shark but a 1lb Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatri).



I caught another whiting before the action slowed down. So I fished near the elbow of the “T”. After a bunch of small taps, I finally got the bait stealing culprit…an 8” Atlantic spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber).



A few more soaks after, another bait thief caught in the act…a 7” Bluerunner (Caranx crysos)…which looks like it had a little run in with some predator.



I caught another after and this one had its tail bit too. I regret not dropping them back as live bait…oh well…live and learn.



Then another bait thief…a 9” Atlantic bumper (Chloroscombrus chrysurus)…which is pretty big for this species actually.



Fishing got a little slow…so I had time to enjoy some of the local scenery.



A couple more spadefish after, then the bluefish moved in. For a while, it was either a hit or a fish on every cast on the cut mullet. Every time the clicker on my Jigmaster went screaming, I thought it was a small shark…but then it was yet another bluefish. I landed 4 bluefish up to 14” long.



I fished until full dark. Fishing got a little slow just about sunset so I had time to take this pic. What a great day of fishing!



Oct 3, 2009

I had the morning free before the conference so I did a little more fishing. I started at the Lazaretto Creek Dock trying for speckled seatrout and redfish. I had freshly dead shrimp with me but the tide was on dead full tide and the water was muddy. Fish were either not around or not biting…I think they were just not around.

I went to the north jetty at Tybee Island to meet up with someone I met on the internet to chill for a bit. He was fishing for the bull redfish (large redfish that can get up to 40lbs) but the bluefish came in and put up some action. I fished a bit with a Gotcha plug since there were sightings of Spanish mackerels. I went followed a bait school for a while and made casts as I ran with it…but no luck. Since it was getting to 12pm, I said goodbye.

On the way to the parking lot, I took some pics.

Tybee lighthouse



Tybee Museum



Flying all sorts of flags…even a pirate flag!



Oct 6, 2009

After a few days at the conference, I took the morning to fish the with another person I met on a fishing forum. Jason has the boat docked at Thunderbolt and we were going to fish Warsaw sound. The targets today were redfish with a chance for speckled seatrout.

It was high tide when we started at 9am, but the tide will be moving out after. We started fishing creek mouths with live shrimp ($20/quart). At the first creek mouth, the fish weren’t around…but I did had a 2 foot shark pulled my popping cork down, then sawed off half the shrimp and took off. We checked out two other creek mouths and found nothing. Each of them had some bait around but it didn’t seem like the fish were there. Maybe it was the dolphins that were around. Jason said they hunt redfish.





Finally, at the fourth creek mouth, something pulled my popping cork down right by some sea grass and it turned out to be a 12” red drum (Sciaenops ocellata).





After that fish, I cast right back to the same spot and it was a 10” spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus)!



Then the cast after…another 12” red drum!

After those three fish, that was it for the spot. So Jason suggested to try a spot called Salt Pond. When we got there, Jason asked whether I wanted to fish the left side or the right side. He said the right said has oyster rakes…so that was easy. Oyster rakes mean redfish hunting areas.

On the first cast, the popping cork came down fast…and it was a redfish. And the next 1.5 hours went like this…cast…redfish…cast…redfish…it was either Jason or I with a fish on constantly…and a few times, it was triple headers. I even tried taking a video but the action was too fast and before I can cast then aim and press the shutter button on the camera, the popping cork had already disappeared. :lol:

We also caught a couple of other species.

11” pigfish…a species of grunt (Orthopristis chrysoptera)





10” spottail pinfish (Diplodus holbrooki)





Before we left, Jason caught the biggest redfish of the day at 18” long.



I also landed my biggest of the day at about 15”





One of the luxury boats in a ship yard for some maintenance work.



In total, we both landed double digit number of redfish. It was just unreal! Jason said it was the best day of fishing for him and he said I was lucky. He said anytime I’m back in Savannah to give him a call and he’d be more than happy to take me fishing again. Thanks Jason! It was lots of fun. At 2pm, I made it back to the hotel for the afternoon seminar sessions. There was a huge smile on my face that I just couldn’t wipe off :lol: Oh yeah…while we were fishing, the gnats were thick in the marsh…and we didn’t have any bug spray. This was just one hand…make sure you have bug spray when you fish the marsh!!!



In the evening, I took a walk down River Street which is part of the historical areas of Savannah. Here are some pictures.





Olympic Flame statue







Some pictures of River Street







Apparently Savannah’s best candy shop.



Old technology meets new technology. The boat is Savannah Queen and we had a conference event on it one evening.



Hm…I think I found a T-shirt that describes me perfectly. :lol:



Oct 7, 2009

This was the last day of the conference but I decided to skip the last bit of seminars for a chance for some bottom fishing. I called around and the closest and most reliable boat was in Atlantic Beach, Florida. So I made the 2.5 hours drive at 3:30am to arrive at the dock at 6:30pm. The ride on the Mayport Princess was $75 including the rod and reel rental, bait and the Florida fishing license. I highly recommend this boat to anyone to visit Jacksonville and St. Augustine.

Anyways, we left the dock at 7am and it was a 1.5 hours ride. We will be fishing in around 100 feet of water for red and vermillion snappers, black seabass, amberjacks and possibly some groupers as well. Cigar minnows are best for red snapper, amberjack and groupers, but they had a real tough time lately finding cigar minnows, so none were available for sale at the dock. Some of the locals did have some cigar minnows. They did well with some 20-30lb class red snappers and 10-25lb class amberjacks. Meanwhile, most of us who fished with squid landed black seabass, vermillion snappers and triggerfish.

Myself, I started with a 11” blacksea bass (Centropristis striata)...just an inch short of the legal limit.



Then it was a lot of vermillion snappers (Rhomboplites aurorubens) just short of the legal 14” length.



I even landed an 8” tomtate grunt (Haemulon aurolineatum)!





Toward the end of the trip, we had time to make some drops on a couple of wrecks. On my first drop, I caught a 7” tomtate grunt…and the deckhand suggested that I drop it back as livebait…so back into the water this little guy went.



It hit bottom and I reel it up a few feet above bottom. I started counting…10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds…BAM!

Holy cow! The reel was pretty much set to lock down drag because you definitely don’t want to fish to run into the wreck and cut you off. However, this also meant getting pulled to the rail when the fish decided to dig deep for the wreck! Of course, you were supposed to reel it up as quickly from bottom as possible…but between getting railed and trying to reel, it was quite a bit of work…not to mentioned being totally surprised by the sheer power of the fish on the other end of the line!

The deckhand came to help lift the rod off the rail and I finally was able to put more attention toward reeling. After the first 30 seconds, it was all me again and the deckhand went to get the gaff. It wasn’t so bad after the first run. The fish made a few more attempts to dive to bottom, but each one was shorter and shorter…eventually we had deep colour and it looked to be an amberjack! The fish looked short of the legal 28” limit so the dechkand just lifted it up.

Yeah…a 25” teenager amberjack…3” too short :roll: It was about 10lbs.





It was just an awesome fight!

After my fish, the captain decided to try another wreck. My game plan was to find a small fish again for bait and drop it down for live bait. On the first drop, I caught an 8” tomtate grunt again…and back it went. Almost immediately, a fish slammed it hard but managed to miss the hook. I reeled in and the grunt was still there, so I dropped it again. Someone on the other side of the boat hooked into a big fish. As my grunt hit bottom, I got slammed again. At first, I thought maybe his fish had run into my line. I had to let my reel in freespool because you don’t want to cause the other person to lose his fish. But then I noticed that I actually had a fish on because his fish was not running under the boat but out the side…and my fish was running back. So I flipped the drag on and as soon as that happened, the line snapped. Of course…when I had the reel in freespool, the fish had ran to the bottom already. Oh well…can’t win them all.

For the last drops, I landed more vermillion snappers. Then it was another 1.5 hours ride back to port. Just before we arrived back to port, we passed by a marine base with a helicopter carrier as well as some gunboats. Pretty cool sights.





It was a great fishing day on a great boat with some very helpful deckhands and a very good captain who knows his spots. The price was also very affordable and I could have kept my limit of vermillion snappers and if I had some cigar minnows, it was also possible to land a few big snappers and amberjacks as well. Try this boat out if you have a chance!

Oct 8, 2009

This morning was my last day in Savannah. I went back to Tybee Pier looking for some sharks. Of course, I had some leftover shrimp from the redfish trip. I fished basically the same setup as last time, although I had bought a few shark rigs with 60lb braided wires so I fished with a whole mullet this time.

Someone from my right was catching small black drums every drop. So I took a bit of time to see how he was getting the action. He was flipping the bottom rig under the pier. So I did the same. I had a lot of small taps but couldn’t set the hook on the fish. After a while, I walked over to chat and see if he could give me any advice. He asked me to bring my rig over to see if I got it right. My #2 baitholder hooks, the bottom rig and 2oz lead was good. So I asked him about the light taps. He said don’t worry about the little bites but wait for the solid pull. So I went back to put his advice to work. I had a lot of bait thieves. Meanwhile, my teacher landed quite a few more black drums. Finally, I had one good tug and set the hook hard. The fish gave up a pretty strong fight on the medium rod and it was a 11” black drum (Pogonias cromis)!



After I figured it out, it was pretty easy fishing. I landed a number of drums from 10-12” and even caught a northern puffer (Sphoeroides maculates)!





The whole time, there were schools of finger mullet swimming around and occasionally, some predator would chase them from below. Then, I saw one of the school being attacked by a Spanish mackerel. At this point, I was down to my last few shrimps. So I put aside my medium spinning rod and set up the heavy UglyStik spinning rod with 25lb on the Penn 650SS. I put on one of the shark rig and tossed a whole mullet into the surf and bring it back, twitching and pausing to imitate an injured mullet. I fished this for about an hour before actually seeing a Spanish mackerel followed my mullet then hit it. I fed it some line as the mackerel ran…but when I set the hook, the head of the mullet and the hook came back. The mackerel managed to miss the hook. Oh darn!

The rest of the time, I fished the rest of the mullet with all of them falling off hook after repeated casting. Just before I left at 2pm, there was a good run of big spotted seatrout. People who were fishing with live shrimp caught these seatrout…but they wouldn’t touch dead shrimp. It was fun watching the action though.

Just before I got to my parking spot, I noticed this sign which I didn’t see the last time at night.



It was a great conference in Savannah and I learned a lot actually. The fish was a huge bonus and it was more than I had expected. In total, I caught 15 new species in total with only 5 days of fishing. It was pretty amazing!

Stay tuned for my second part of the trip…a visit to New York City, Long Island and Montauk.