INSHORE REPORT Fishing inshore for red fish, spotted sea trout, flounder, whiting, black drum and shark is still very goo. Live shrimp is the best bait, however, if you keep getting cut offs by smaller fish I suggest change to artificial shrimp patterns or flukes types. When to use the live stuff and when you don’t have too. Old School is the Tool. Fishermen know that live shrimp is a great bait.
The reason being we know that most fish will eat a live shrimp. However, especially during this time of year the fetish fish are on a feeding rage. Let me back up and explain exactly what a fetish fish is: It’s a smaller fish such as a pinfish, pig fish, or needle fish that can’t eat a whole shrimp at one time, but they can do so one piece at a time. This means the legs, the tail, parts on the head, and I think you get the picture.
Even if you do find the fish that you are looking for you are most likely going to have to deal with these bait breakers.
This is when your arsenal of artificial baits will come in catching handy.
There is a good side to all of this destruction of your bait. You are not the only one fighting for the live shrimp. The fish such as the red fish, spotted sea trout, and flounder are doing the exact same thing.
Once your live shrimp is dismantled it’s not too likely that you will get that triggered hit. So therefore I suggest throwing in the nose weighted flukes and shrimp look alikes! You can set these baits up naked (without a float) or with a popping cork or traditional adjustable float.
ARTIFICIAL REEFS With water temperatures rocking between mid/high 60s and low 70s bite patterns are going to change.
This is the time of the year where you could find yourself catching anything from a cobia to a grouper to a trophy red fish to black sea bass to trigger fish to scup to summer trout to flounder to well I think you get the jist of it.
2021 FISHING CLINICS February 19, 2021 Friday, February 20, 2021 Saturday and February 21, 2021 Sunday On inshore/offshore boats in the water, $150 per person for inshore; $150 per person for offshore Morning clinics from 8 a.m. to noon. Afternoon from 1 to 5 p.m.
Time: l-5 p.m. Snacks and drinks provided by Captain Judy Place: Miss Judy Charters dock 202 Wilmington Island Road, Savannah, Georgia 31410 912-897-4921 for more details. We will be offer classes on the water in inshore fishing, proven inshore light tackle techniques, red fish, spotted sea trout and flounder! Offshore clinics will include proven offshore techniques that took years to modify and includes the artificial reefs, Savannah snapper banks and the Gulf Stream. THANKSGIVING My father always invited lots of family and friends to our Pre-Thanksgiving and drinking fest. It normally started around noon and most of the time lasted way until the early hours of the morning.
Due to the fact that there were so many different types of people attending I have to admit sometimes things really got interesting, and by large there was a good time had by all!
Our dinner wasn’t like most others where your family comes to visit, sits at the table, converses and then eats. It was more like a large picnic where you sat where you could and drank either what you brought or what was available. My father always had some sort of spirits around. According to my father the best of all liquor’s was called “O P!”
This simply stood for “other people’s liquor.” We spent our actual Thanksgiving Day at my Aunt Hattie and Uncle Foster’s house, but that’s an entirely different story. Our pre-Thanksgiving party was always a hit with those who attended and also it meant a great deal for those that didn’t. The reason for this is a simple one, “those that didn’t really had lots to talk about!” Our parties did get out of hand in most cases, which only added fuel to the conversations of the “busybody brigade!”
My father use to always say, “Women in hats always have something to hide!”
According to Daddy it was their big mouths. As a child, I wasn’t sure about the mouth thing, so therefore I stared at all those wearing hats, because I was always trying to get a glimpse of what they were supposedly trying to hide.
I am sure glad I grew out of that one.
We made this hors d’oeuvre, although Daddy never called them that. I can guarantee they were eaten by the handfuls.
Daddy would take a tube of Saltine crackers and deal them out on a big tray.
After that achievement he would open a few cans of whole sardines, drain them, and put a large piece on each cracker. As well as I can remember 1/2 sardine on each cracker worked out well. On top of the sardines daddy put a thinly cut ring of raw Vidalia onion or a big piece of scallion onion.
My job was to soften the tough meat of old lemons.
I would then hand them over and daddy would cut them in half. He then would squeeze the juice over the top of the crackers, sardines, and onion rings.
According to my father this was a dish that had to be eaten right away. If not the crackers would become to soft to pick up. My job was to carry the tray and offer them up. As I can remember since it was long ago I think I only dropped a few trays.
This was not a total loss, because the dogs liked them too!
Our guests showed up in cars, trucks, and boats.
We never knew exactly how many guests would attend, but knowing my father as I did I always expected a lot.
In the cooking department, I would have some help from daddy in my younger years, but as I got older I grabbed whomever I could. We cooked the normal Thanksgiving stuff, which consisted of baked turkey, dressing, and Lima beans. When I was young, 8 years or less, neither daddy nor I could figure out how to make giblet gravy or rice. Back in the old days you couldn’t just purchase gravy in a jar or rice in a bag. So we stayed away from those two items. We had our turkey recipe down. We just oiled the bird up, put some choice seasonings on it, dumped it in the oven, and put it on 350 degrees for many hours. However, there was this time where the turkey slipped out of our hands and on to the floor it went. A greased headless 22-pound turkey when free dropped from 3 feet, especially at an angle, can do some traveling on the old kitchen floor. I should have measured the distance, but didn’t think about it at the time.
The stuffing/dressing was another thing that I didn’t understand the whole just of. My first dressings didn’t have much taste. I don’t know why I just didn’t ask someone, but I really never thought about it. The biggest problem was the fact that I didn’t know that it had to be cooked in the oven. So therefore most of the time it was made from the turkey’s juice and cracked up toast. It never looked, much less tasted, like Aunt Hattie’s dressing whether I cooked it or not. I guess you really could say especially in this case “the secret was definitely not in my sauce!”
Happy Early Thanksgiving!
Captain Judy Helmey Capt. Judy is a local captain. She can be reached at 912-897-4921 or Fishjudy2@ aol.com.