Inshore Fishing
Plan out kayak fishing trips
The weather was set up for a perfect weekend float down the creek, the days not too hot and the nights not too cold. The time had come.
Inshore Fishing
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Hail to the Spanish!
Spanish mackerel are favorites of many North Carolina fishermen, especially along the southern coast. Their popularity is based on four undeniable traits:
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Time to catch red drum on top
Topwater fishing for red drum cranks up in mid-May when the water temperature begins to climb, and as it approaches, guide Rick Patterson of Cape Carteret starts counting the days.
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Summer spadefish
As summer arrives, South Carolinians begin to make their vacation plans. It’s a time when beachgoers start venturing into the warming waters, and many begin seeing jellyfish while they’re tossing their Frisbees. But for anglers, the arrival of the cannonball jellies, aka jelly balls, can only mean one thing — it’s time to target spadefish.
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Rock those sheepshead!
Sitting in a johnboat along a rock wall in Fripp Inlet, Billy Downer of Manning looked at John Long of Lady’s Island and explained, “I think it’s my rod. Maybe I can’t catch them because of my rod.”
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Catch Carolina Beach speckled trout with these lures and tips
By the time day broke over Buzzard’s Bay on Tuesday morning, Lewis Emery of Tails Up Charters in Carolina Beach and his buddy, Larry Essick, already had a handful of speckled trout in the boat — and neither was surprised.
Inshore Fishing
Quick thinking leads to more cobia hookups
May and June offer great opportunities for fishermen who dream of hooking up with a powerhouse, 50-pound cobia just off the beach. But anglers must act fast if they want to get a hookup, because no matter how lazy these fish appear when cruising along the surface, they become less and less catchable every minute a boat is on the scene.
Inshore Fishing
Cobia season will close June 20
South Carolina’s cobia numbers have been on a roller-coaster over the past 10 years after a relatively stable recreational harvest through the 1980s and 1990s.
Inshore Fishing
Don’t count on finding cobia in the same spots every day this month
Guide Jot Owens begins seeing cobia off Wrightsville Beach in May, and on a typical day, he will head to the Masonboro Inlet jetties first thing early in the morning and then start running the beach looking for pods of bait and free-swimming cobia. But he can never count on them being in the same place day after day.
Inshore Fishing
Don’t neglect South Carolina’s nearshore reefs when searching for spring cobia
While cobia move into South Carolina’s inshore waters this month, they can still be caught at nearshore and offshore reefs, and anglers fishing those areas usually don’t have to fight the large crowd of boats that line up in St. Helena Sound, the Broad River, and similar inshore haunts.
