Fishermen in boats can enjoy

Remnants of Ravenel Bridge over Cooper River are holding specks

Capt. Rick Hiott of Charleston enjoyed a nice fishing trip this past Wednesday – one he won’t get the chance to repeat much longer.

The reason?

Hiott set up shop in Charleston’s Cooper River, underneath the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which carries Rt. 17 and links Charleston and Mount Pleasant. But he wasn’t fishing that bridge – he was fishing what was left of the old Silas Pearman Bridge.

That bridge was torn down, but pilings on the Mount Pleasant side were left as foundation for a 1,250-foot fishing pier that will open around July 4, according to Hiott.

And when the pier opens to the public, Hiott figures his chance to flip baits under the pier and catch speckled trout will be over.

“You’ve got to get ‘em while you can,” he said. “You won’t be able to fish like this anymore once they open it” and fishermen are lining the rails.

The new pier, part of Mount Pleasant’s Memorial Waterfront Park complex, is a fish magnet. Pilings from the Pearman Bridge were used as the new pier’s foundation, and there’s plenty of concrete rubble and steel lining the shallow river bottom under the new structure.

And if there’s one thing that trout love, it’s rubble. And Hiott loves trout, so he’s been there a lot recently. On Wednesday morning, with the tide rising, he and a companion set up under the Ravenel Bridge and flipped live menhaden on popping-cork rigs under the pier, allowing them to drift with the current. Specks were present, including a handful of keeper fish that it took Hiott only 30 minutes to catch.

“The action has been good around the pier early and late in the day,” said Hiott (843-412-6776). “You sit under the Rt. 17 bridge on the incoming tide and the other side of the pier on the outgoing tide and just let the current drift your bait under there.

“There’s all kind of concrete and steel and rubble under the pier, and I think the specks just cruise along, waiting to ambush whatever comes by.”