Georgia Saltwater Fishing Reports – February 2021

Saltwater: Inshore: Capt. David Newlin reports, “Water temperatures have been ranging from 48 up the rivers to 56 a few miles offshore. That is cold for the Georgia coast. Redfish, stripers, sheepshead and black drum are being caught in good numbers. The redfish I have been catching are almost all the way up in the creeks. They have also been up the river in the brackish water several miles up the Ogeechee. Recent rains have sent a lot of freshwater in our directions. A shrimp fished real close to the bottom has been working for me. A jig with a Gulp! Shrimp on it fished real slow has been catching redfish good. February should be good for catching redfish. The stripers have been hitting great up the river. I have been catching them in good numbers recently. A live shrimp under a cork, Rapalas and white jigs have all caught stripers over the last few weeks. They will bite when nothing else will. The weather that turns off all the other fish will turn saltwater stripers on. They should bite good on through February. Look for them along the edges where two currents meet. They like fast-moving water. The sheepshead bite is usually real good in February. They will be in the sounds and on nearshore reefs. A fiddler crab fish real close to barnacle-covered structure will catch sheepshead. When the weather cooperates, the reefs can have a lot of fish on them. On the reefs you can also catch black drum and some big redfish. Put a big piece of cut fish on a 10/0 circle hook, and a big redfish will find it. The trout bite has slowed down a little. A few days of warm weather can turn that around quickly. Try fishing a jig real slow right on the bottom. Trout are a lot slower moving when the water is in the 40s. Slow all your fishing down a lot to catch them. The catfish bite up the river has been real good. Catfish are a good winter get-out-of-the house fish. The Ogeechee between Fort McAllister and Highway 17 has a lot of freshwater catfish. Almost anywhere you can put a piece of shrimp on the bottom you can catch some catfish. Fried catfish is hard to beat. February fishing should be good. With a little warm weather, it will be real good.”

Capt. Judy Helmey reports, “Inshore fishing in February can be very good for redfish, but you need to keep in mind that the water is a lot clearer, causing the fish to be a bit more skittish. I suggest keeping as quiet as possible. Knowing this information is key to successfully not only finding but also catching redfish. Pick areas in the sounds where sloughs flow onto bars or flats. Best fishing spots should have at least 6 inches of water at mean low tide. The best days are going to be those that have a midday low tide stage with sunny conditions. I like to fish the bottom of the low tide stage until the water floods the grass. Another reason why I like to fish low to high tide is the water under your boat gets deeper not shallower. No one wants to spend the day high and dry on a sandbar. Due to the last couple of hurricanes, lots of changes in the sandbars have taken place. Also, with more water, we have more current, which is the reason that our sandbars are changing so often. As far as baits when it comes to the natural stuff, I suggest last year’s frozen, smelly shrimp and/or whole mullet cut in pieces like a loaf of bread. Cut the bait first before heading out. The best place to put the bait is out in the air and sun. This dries the bait and seals in the fish juices that rings the dinner bell for a redfish once it is placed back in the water. When using natural baits, all you need is 12 to 15 inches of 15- to 20-lb. test fluorocarbon leader tied to a small extra sharp circle hook. Cast into the area, let the bait fall to the bottom and wait for a hit. Please keep in mind before setting the hook to give them time to eat. For those fishermen who prefer pitching artificial baits during the cold-water bite, I suggest Berkley jerkbaits or Strike King flukes rigged on 1/4-oz. jig heads. White is the right color for this time of the year. White with specks, glitter, two-tone or more of a white background is preferred. This is the time of the year when targeting redfish with a soft-plastic, worm-type-shaped lure. It seems the extra mud/sand storm it makes when bumped along the bottom gets this fish’s attention. However, too much or not enough movement is going to be the key to unlocking this cold-water bite. The other soft artificial bait is going to be one that is sporting a paddle tail. This particular design is great for this time of the year. Why? It is a lure that doesn’t need to be worked much. The paddle moves with little or no current and represents live bait, but one that is being slowed by the affects of cold water. For those fishermen who want to give striped bass a try, February is a great month for this fish. The Savannah and Ogeechee rivers are the two areas that seem to hold the interest of these strong-pulling fish. Best baits are live shrimp, finger mullet and threadfin herring. For those wanting to go artificial, I suggest a 3-oz. lead head with hair jigs rigged with 4-inch plastic worms or paddle tails. The best jig for this job is Cobia Candy. The striped bass is a fish that loves windy, rainy and cold-water conditions. Back in the old days, we trolled 6- to 8-inch broken-back lures, Chubs and Cisco Kid lures. Best colors then were red/white and black/silver. The Chubs standard colors were red/white. When it came to the original Cisco Kid, it only came in solid colors. My father was a master magician when it came to using spray paint on the boat. He would spray the Cisco Kid while still tied to the main line. He would use any old color combination that suited him at the moment. Sometimes he would go two tone and sometimes not. Please remember when it came to spray paint back in the real old days, your colors were limited. He carried on board red, black, white, green and silver.  And when he wanted to try a different color lure, he just painted it right on the spot. The spotted seatrout bite is normally very slow to go during the month of February. However, if the bite stays half as good as January’s was, then there will be plenty of action. The mild winter temps have not put the seatrout in the hibernation mode, which is the norm for the months of January/February. Our inshore captains have been catching spotted seatrout ranging from 14 to 23 inches while using live shrimp. They are catching their own live shrimp, which most of the time are being caught in the deeper holes. We have found in our cast nets that large schools of small yellowtails are situated above the shrimp. Where you start catching yellowtails in the net, there is bound to be shrimp down under. Throwing the net a few times should scatter the fish, leaving a better opportunity to catch more shrimp.”

Nearshore: Capt. Judy Helmey reports, “The nearshore artificial reefs located in 45 to 50 feet of water are holding the winter migration of large sheepshead. Normally the reefs offering the best vertical structure are the ones that hold the most sheepshead and black drum. The best bait is going to be the purple or black back fiddler. I suggest anchoring while situating your boat so that you can fish over and around the wreck. These fish are known for biting furiously and then stopping. Your best stance to take when this happens is to keep fishing and not moving from this spot. This is a fish that is known for feeding vertically while circling around the wreck at a slow pace, which means the school is most likely going to be making continuous passes. The artificial reefs located in more than 50 feet of water are holding black sea bass. Normally this is a fish that loves to school up in low-relief areas and feed near the bottom.  However, during this time large schools of black fish can be found schooling just about every place where there is structure. All structure has potential, but you will most likely find them holding in only a few spots on the reef. If your plan is to drift particular spots, you are only going to get a few drifts before the bite will thin. However, when making longer drifts, you will get the opportunity to find new spots. You will also find that fish move from one live bottom to another, which means more bite opportunity. While in this longer drifting mode, it will give the isolated spots that are holding larger numbers of fish time to re-group. If anchored, the bite will be about the same way, which is wide open and then it will slow. Please remember when in the anchor mode, our currents are always normally changing rapidly. Therefore, so is your boat’s location over the area you are anchored on, which also offers up a continuous change in the location of the bite. The best bait is going to be cut squid and fish. To target the larger black sea bass, I suggest using a fish steak with all fins removed. It’s the bigger the bait, the bigger the fish bite scenario. Before heading out, I suggest printing out a copy of the artificial reefs showing GPS coordinates and/or making sure your GPS has them. If it hasn’t been updated, key coordinates might have not been added to your unit. Since most artificial reefs are no longer marked with yellow reef buoys, I suggest when researching for coordinates, use only the ones that mark the actual places that you want to anchor and not the area. Go to https://coastalgadnr.org/HERU to find this information. If you haven’t been to this site in a while, it has been updated greatly. It is very fisherman friendly and will certainly get you much closer to the fish. February is considered our coldest month, meaning there is still plenty of time for offshore trophy redfish action to be had. Most of these trophy redfish that have migrated offshore during this time and are in the 27- to 48-inch and bigger range. The best place to start looking is at the nearshore artificial reefs located in up to 50 feet of water. Here are a few artificial reefs that have been holding some nice trophy fish: SAV, DUA, CAT, KC and KTK. Best places to anchor over are barges or pallet balls. If you have done your homework, you should already have all artificial coordinates either in your GPS or have a printed copy of the area that you are going to fish. Another suggestion is while heading to your destination point is to keep an eye out for any formed rips that are holding birds. I have caught many trophy redfish while working rips that the seabirds are also interested in. Once you have slowed down to the area in question, look on your fish finder for any large solid marks. These large marks should be the fish that you are looking for. While making your way offshore to the structure on the artificial reef, quite often a school of large redfish will find plenty to feed on in a formed rip. A rip is two different currents being pushed together making what I call ‘a wall.’  Small baits and other creatures get held up here or migrate to areas such as these. They think they are in a safe zone, but really they are feeding zones for bigger fish. As far as best artificial baits, try Causeway Diamond jigs. Once you have located the school, pitch your jig, let it free fall, and you should get a solid hit before it lands on the bottom. When more than one fisherman is jigging, I suggest waiting a few seconds before throwing out the second jig. Your hooked-up redfish will most likely be followed by the entire school of fish. I have always called this the ‘redfish tagging game.’ It’s as if each redfish is playing tag with the other. You need to be prepared in case this happens. To get prepared, I suggest cutting or chunking up any old mullet or menhaden that you might have. Heck, even last year’s frozen ballyhoo once cut in steaks will get this fish’s feeding attention. You should have this ready to throw right into the school of redfish. This food will keep them near the surface for an extra second, but as soon as the chunks start to sink, the fish will disappear with them. While all this is going on, I suggest pitching another jig and letting it fall directly to the bottom.  If you are lucky enough to penetrate the feeding school, believe me the jig will not make it to the bottom. Please remember all redfish caught in federal waters are protected and have to be released as soon as possible. However, get pictures first.”

Offshore: Capt. Judy Helmey reports, “For those of you who want to take a longer ride, there is always the live-bottom areas of the Savannah Snapper Banks. During this time, the bottom bite for large sea bass, trigger fish, vermilion snapper, white grunt, white bone porgy, red porgy and knobbed porgy is very good. As far as best bait to use, squid is universal, meaning all fish will eat this stuff. When waters temp are on the colder side, most fish are not picky due to the fact their realm of feeding opportunities are limited. Don’t overthink bait used because presentation is higher on the list than taste. What does this mean? If you can deliver your bait to the fish’s strike zone, it is going to eat it because it is there. The African pompano has been showing up in our area for years. Normally at this time of the year, large-sized African pompano can be found schooling around the R7, M2R6 and R2 naval towers. I have seen them schooling inside of the towers legs on many occasions. Their dorsal fins are very noticeable and by observing you can determined whether these fish are feeding or just paused near the surface. This is a fish that loves to chase at its intended meal. We have caught them on live menhaden, mullet, pinfish, cigar minnows and Spanish sardines. However, sometimes live bait isn’t so available, but I wouldn’t let that stop you from trying what’s in the bait cooler. Once you decide what you are going to use for bait, whether it’s dead or alive, you have several options for presentation. Just to name a few: popping corks, assorted sizes of traditional adjustment floats or just plain naked, meaning bait on a short leader tied directly to main line. At this point, your main goal should be to get hooked up outside of the tower’s legs. Don’t forget your camera.”

Editor’s Note: Miss Judy Charters will be offering their 2021 Captain Judy’s Inshore/Offshore Fishing Clinics Feb. 19-21, 2021 on inshore/offshore boats in the water. The cost is $150 per person for inshore or $150 per person for offshore. Morning classes and departures are 8 a.m. until 12 p.m. Afternoon classes and departures are 1-5 p.m. Snacks and drinks provided by Capt. Judy. Inshore fishing focuses on proven inshore light-tackle techniques revealed for redfish, spotted seatrout and flounder. Offshore fishing focuses on proven offshore techniques that took years to modify at the artificial reefs, Savannah Snapper Banks and the Gulf Stream. Call 912.897.4921 for more details.