Featured
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.”
Inshore Fishing
Featured
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.
Inshore Fishing
Big 2015 cobia catch hurts 2016 season
Because 2015 was such a fruitful year for North Carolina cobia fishermen, they’ll have a big payback to make in 2016.
Inshore Fishing
Cobia will hit bait or lures
While Buddy Bizzell usually prefers live or cut menhaden for cobia bait, he said cobia aren’t picky about what they eat. A number of other baits are good choices.
Inshore Fishing
Cobia are an unusual pelagic species
Cobia, rachycentron canadum, are a pelagic fish — they travel the open ocean — but unlike most pelagic species, cobia also inhabit inshore waterways like the Broad River and St. Helena Sound, at least for short periods of time.
Inshore Fishing
Top live baits for speckled trout
The audacity of man to believe he can create a fishing bait better then God’s own hands never ceases to amaze die-hard, live-bait anglers, especially when speckled trout are concerned. With bait moving back into the estuaries, here’s your pick of the best live baits for big specks.