Georgia Saltwater Fishing Report – August 2008

Saltwater: Inshore: Very good. “The weather has been hot, and so has the fishing action,” said Capt. Greg Hildreth. “The inshore fishing for trout and reds has been very good around the sounds and on the beaches. Shrimp has been the bait of choice in depths of 3 to 6 feet. It seems to be if you find clear water that is moving around structure such as oyster bars, the fish are there,” he said. Capt. David Newlin said there’s a really big crop of redfish coming on. “Most of them are 11 1/2 to 12 inches right now, and there are just hundreds of them. They’re close to the ocean at the edges of the sounds. There’s a lot of trout on the fronts of the beaches, with a fair amount of big trout. We’re fishing live shrimp, mainly around the beachfront of St. Catherines,” he said.

Nearshore: Excellent. “The nearshore fishing for tarpon has also been hot,” Capt. Hildreth said. “The fish we’ve been catching have been on the shoal and bar areas of St. Andrews Sound and off of Cumberland Island. Most of the big ‘poons’ have been taken on pogies fished on the bottom. If we don’t have too much bad weather out of the tropics, the tarpon season will last into mid September.” Fishing up the coast, Capt. David Newlin said the tarpon have shown up big time. “St. Catherines, Sapelo and Wassaw, anywhere from the beach out to about 2 miles, we’re seeing a lot of tarpon. Find a school of pogies, and you’ll find the tarpon. We caught three today and two yesterday. They didn’t show up good until last Tuesday,” Capt. Newlin said. “A bonus is there are a lot of big kings mixed in. We caught a 44-pounder within a half-mile of the beach. We’re using live pogies and a popping cork, and we’re catching tarpon, a few kings and plenty of sharks. I’ve never seen this many pogies, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen this many big kings so close in.” Shark fishing is good, too. “The big blacktips (sharks) are everywhere,” Capt. Newlin said.