Georgia Saltwater Fishing Report – August 2006

Inshore: The inshore bite has been good, said Capt. Greg Hildreth. “The trout are hitting on live shrimp as well as on the DOA shrimp in the glow color,” he said. You can also catch redfish on the mud flats at low tide by sight-fishing and casting soft jerkbaits. “The black tip shark action as been on fire behind the shrimp boats using live pogies,” Capt. Greg added.

Nearshore: The tarpon bite is on! Capt. Greg said there are lots of big tarpon off the southern Georgia coast this — better than average for what is always a very good fishery. “I have been doing well with live pogies as well as casting artificial plugs like a Spike It six-inch shad as well as DOA Bait Busters. I jumped three fish today (July 21) on the Bait Busters,” Capt. Greg said. Fish the sandbars and shoals. If you fish with pogies, use a mix of baits on the bottom and also on flatlines with no weight. Up the coast, Capt. David Newlin is also seeing plenty of tarpon, and he’s also seeing some awfully big sharks this summer, as well as big numbers of small and medium-sized sharks. “The big sharks are excessively thick, a lot of big tiger sharks,” Capt. David said. Captain Matt Starling of Miss Judy Charters reported that while targeting tarpon he had quite a day of shark catching this past week. He caught quite a few over 50-lb. sharks while using menhaden as bait. The best bait while tarpon fishing is menhaden. However, with this bait you get both the toothy monster and tarpon, which feed together. Captain Matt caught bonnetheads, juvenile bull shark, and large black tips while targeting tarpon this past week. Some of these sharks would have tipped the scales way over 50 pounds.

Offshore: The bottom fishing is great, but only if you have the right bait, according to Capt. Judy Helmey. “Live bait is the way to go to get the best big bottom bite. However, we did catch some of the fish on small pieces of cut squid while using extra strong and sharp 2/0 “J” hooks. Vermilion snapper were holding in about 100 to 110 feet of water. The good news about this fish is that they school in the upper water column and are easy to mark with your fish finder. The larger vermilions normally school over the smaller ones.”