By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Go for mud minnows when shrimp hide
Capt. Judy fishing

Inshore fishing

The inshore fishing has been good and sometimes great. However, catching, purchasing and finding live bait has been a little challenging.

Catching has been an issue due to tide stages.

Captains are not getting back from their trips soon enough to catch the shrimp before they heading back into the safely of the grass and vice versa.

Those bait shops that drag for shrimp are not all open and the ones that are sell out quickly.

So for those that just want to forget about live shrimp, especially if you can’t get it, I suggest catching yourself some mud minnows. Heck, they are worth more than you think.

These two-for-one baits works like a catching charm. Why? Normally you can get two hits out of one mud minnow. And after two hits I suggest releasing them back to the wild.

After all, it is all of our opinions that the mud minnow gods just might smile on you. And believe me, we need all of the help we can get!

Lots of reeling going on

Just so you know, plain old bottom fishing in the sound can certainly be interesting for many reasons. But there is one big one for sure.

What is that? You really never know what might bite your hook. We have caught Jack crevalle, cobia, trophy red fish, and all types of sharks from bulls to lemons to spinners.

No matter which fish bites what, a strong, long fight just about always takes place. And isn’t that what fishing is all about?

From the words of a real fisherman, “Yep, I would say so, so let’s go!”

Yahoo wahoo

What do I know about these fish? Well, I know they are disablers. What does that mean?

This fish cuts it prey’s tail off, which means first no swimming anywhere here. Once the tailless fish starts to fall in the water column, the wahoo turns and then feeds. All this at speeds of 40+ mph. And it can corner like it is on rails. What does this mean?

If the wahoo sees any feeding possibility out the corner of its eye, it can make cornering turns like no other.

Gulf Stream blue water fishing

Yep, it is great. It is a long ride. But it is well worth it. It is time to go!

The blue waters of the Gulf Stream can certainly offer lots of action during the month of May. Water temperatures to the west of the stream are still cooler, meaning the edge is still strong. The best ways to find fish is to locate any temperatures breaks. (Visit //sstcharts.com/ for free online sea surface temperature charts) For those fishermen that want fishing information for fishing from your boat or mine, please give us a call 912-897-4921 or email fishjudy2@aol.com.

My father would always help me come up with the greatest “show and tell” stuff. I will never forget this one nor will the class, much less the teachers. We did the shark thing – no I didn’t just write about them, I took one for show and tell.

It wasn’t a whole shark because Daddy said, “It would smell too bad to take to the classroom.”

We would remove the fins, pour salt on them and lay them in the sun.

After a few days of sun baking, they were dried out pretty good. So I then had dried shark fins.

We boiled the eyes until these white pebble looking things appeared.

There were two, one from each eye. We removed the jaw, which was not only messy, but also hard to get all of the meat off. My father would secure the sort of cleaned shark jaw either on top or near an ant bed.

Those small multiple-leg rascals loved a good challenge.

The ants would basically pick the jaw clean.

After the ant posse was finished, I would retrieve, pour salt on the jaw and lay it out in the sun. All shark leftover parts were always laid on one of our tin roofs.

All of these dried shark parts were the show part of my show and tell. My father then clued me on the tell part.

He told me the most interesting things about a shark.

They basically urinated through their skin; therefore skin removal is important if the plan is to eat them.

Their heart can beat for up to six hours even after they are considered dead.

It is encased in a special cavity, which is under all of their internal organs.

They don’t have any bones only cartilage, which enables them to turn their head completely back far enough so as to bite their own tail. This boils down to one thing, don’t hold them by the tail when they are alive.

This is my last and best. Fully cooked shark meat will bleed after it sits for a while. This is no matter how much you cook it. I eat it while its hot suggest no matter what to eat it while it’s hot!

Thanks for reading!

Capt. Judy Helmey can be reached at 912-897-4921 and www.missjudycharters. com.

Sign up for our E-Newsletters