Saltwater Series: The ‘In-between ICW’

Despite heavy pressure the Intracoastal Waterway provides great fishing in backwaters, creeks and points.

The area northeast of Charleston Harbor and southwest of Bulls Bay is about 20 miles of some of the best fishing waters that South Carolina has to offer.

The Intracoastal Waterway is the key; it links the two larger bodies of water and offers access to several inlets — Breach, Dewees, Capers and Price — and is crisscrossed by dozens of creeks that open up some of the best backwater areas the Palmetto State has to offer, places like Grey Bay and Hamlin Sound, literally thousands of acres of mud flats, oyster mounds, plus the shrimp, baitfish and gamefish that inhabit them.

If there’s a negative, it’s that because of its proximity to Charleston, the area draws as much fishing pressure as any stretch of water in South Carolina. But somehow or other, it seems not to have been affected too much.

Capt. Fritz von Kolnitz of Adventure Outdoors Guide Service has fished this stretch of water since he was a kid growing up on Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant. He started guiding fishermen 10 years ago, and he rarely has reason to leave the waters between the harbor and Bulls Bay, except to occasionally fish the harbor and its jetties, or to run out one of the inlets to fish for bull reds, tarpon or sharks.

“You’ve got lots of water; it’s 25 miles from the harbor to just past the start of Bulls Bay,” said von Kolnitz, who keeps his boat at Isle of Palms Marina. “There are hundreds of spots to fish, but a lot of it is putting in time and effort. You don’t just fish a spot on one tide or under one set of conditions. You fish different places on different tides, different winds, different times of day, and then you can sort of figure it out.

“The only drawback is pressure,” he said. “The area gets fished heavily, especially from Isle of Palms to Bulls Bay. But there is a lot of water.”

Here are a few spots that he regularly fishes:

1. Old Pitt Street Bridge
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A very short distance from Charleston Harbor are the remnants of an old bridge that used to run from Mount Pleasant to Sullivan’s Island. Several sets of concrete pilings remain in the water, along with plenty of rubble, and more sets of pilings span marsh back toward Mount Pleasant, which has converted a section of the bridge into a public walkway and fishing pier.

von Kolnitz said it’s an excellent place to fish, and not only for fishermen with boats.

“The pier that runs out that’s accessible by land from Pitt Street, and there’s a creek that runs right up and under it,” he said.

By boat, however, the old bridge offers fishermen several alternatives. “You can fish the end of the structure, floating baits past them or along the grass for trout and reds, or you can get right up against the structure and fish for sheepshead with fiddler crabs and shrimp,” he said.

“When the tide is rolling in, you want to be on the harbor side, and when it’s going out, you want to be on the other side,” said von Kolnitz, who likes to fish finger mullet, mud minnows and live shrimp under a float. “You want to fish toward the structure. When the current is slack, you can get up and tie off and fish straight up and down for sheepshead.”

Editor’s note: This article is part of the Saltwater Series in the October issue of South Carolina Sportsman. To find out the rest of the spots Capt. Fritz von Kolnitz fishes, you can download a digital edition of this issue right to your computer or smartphone.

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