Georgia Saltwater Fishing Report – June 2025

Saltwater: Inshore: Capt. David Newlin reports, “May has been an interesting fishing month. Redfish, trout, black drum and whiting have been biting. On May 19, the water temp was right on 80 degrees—summertime is here. June is usually a good trout fishing month. The trout are starting to spawn and are moving into the open waters and out toward the beaches. All the usual spots out in the sounds should have fish on them. Look around points and oyster mounds that have deep water and current around them. Almost all the better spots are very tide dependent. Most spots are good for an hour or so on a certain tide, the trick is figuring out the right tide. A live shrimp under a cork will usually work. Some days they like a shrimp fished on the bottom. I will rig a 1/4-oz. egg sinker attached to a small swivel with a 2-foot leader and a light hook in a lively shrimp. During the summer, I like fishing topwater MirrOlures and Zara Spooks early and late in the day. The first hour after daybreak and the last hour before dark are the best. Red and white colors work good for me. Redfish will scatter out all over the sounds next month. During the warmer months, they don’t seem to stay in schools. It will be more like one or two fish here and there. All the bigger shell banks can hold a few. Look for them chasing bait in the shallows. On high tides, you can find them in the marsh flats. The shallow-water activity is much more obvious early and late. A big live shrimp will usually get their attention. The summer flounder bite is starting to heat up. Next month should be good flounder catching. Look for them on shallow flats that have a mix of shells and mud or sand. A live shrimp floated just off the bottom is hard to beat. If the small, bait-stealing fish are bad, try a small mullet or polywog minnow. A white Gulp! Swimming Mullet and a red jig head can work real good. We have been catching a few flounder and the bite should get better in June. Sharks are all over the place and should be here in big numbers in June. As always, a piece of fresh fish on the bottom will usually work. Big schools of menhaden are all over the beaches. Usually the sharks will be in the big baitfish schools. Tarpon should be here very shortly. I haven’t seen any yet, but by the middle of June, a few should be here. June is usually a good month to throw shrimp and come home with a mixed bag of fish. Bring your sunscreen and plenty to drink and have fun.”

Capt. Judy Helmey reports, “Inshore fishermen get to go into the spotted seatrout, redfish, flounder, sheepshead, black drum, shark, Spanish mackerel and cobia watching and catching mode! This would be the month to bring out the cast net and catch your own bait. Inshore fisherman can leave the dock without bait because peanut menhaden, finger mullet and mud minnows are available, as well as plentiful. As far as live shrimp, we can only hope that this population gets stronger. As usual, fishermen as of last month had little options in the purchasing and catching of live shrimp. I suggest always checking with the local baits shops to see if they have been carrying live shrimp. If so, then most likely you can catch some with the old cast net. The best way to be prepared in the event that you can’t purchase or catch any live shrimp is to have some artificial shrimp patterns with assorted color. These styles of artificial baits work great when rigged on jigs, cast into place and retrieved slowly. It seems when it comes to working artificial bait, all fishermen, including myself, have a signature pattern move that they prefer to use. Mine goes like this: I cast into place, and let my bait fall seemly natural through the water column. Once it hits the bottom, I wait a few seconds, reel a few turns, wait, twitch it a bit, and then slowly retrieve. What does twitching do? It causes a small mud storm. This in turn brings the attention of fish. When something dead/fake or alive moves near the bottom, it produces one heck of a calling card, which equates to a very noticeable trail. All these live baits will work under traditional adjustable floats or popping corks, Carolina-style rigs or fish just plain naked. In our area, peanut menhaden, mud minnows, yellow tail, finger mullet and croaker make for great bait. This is especially true when live shrimp is not available. In this case, the bigger the bait, meaning live fish versus shrimp, seems to bring on a larger fish bite, such as big spotted seatrout. It is a known fact that larger fish always rule when working in the strike zone. For those fishermen who want to use artificial lures, please pick up an assortment of different colors of Strike King soft jerkbaits. One of our favorites is baby bass, which is 3XZT00-55. These baits work rigged weedless on a 3/0 worm hook or threaded onto 1/8-oz. red, black or white jig heads. Cast them out, let them fall, and normally these lures never make it to the bottom before strikes happen. Berkley Gulp! Alive is a great soft artificial bait that comes in many forms. These baits will work rigged on jig heads or under corks. It works whether it is in its original shape or not. After this bait is destroyed, I have taken the leftover parts, sliced them into pieces, dropped them back in the sauce to marinate and used them while bottom fishing. In this case, the secret is really in the sauce. During this month, the inshore shark populations are plentiful, which means they are hungry. For those fishermen who want lots of pulling sport, I suggest light-tackle shark fishing. The best bait during this time is blue fish fillets/chunks or whiting steaks. It’s best to use these baits the same day when they are caught. However, if you aren’t that lucky, then use what you have. Fresh cut fish such as this offers a smell that sharks are drawn, to. Whole fresh, just caught whiting makes great shark bait. When using this bait, I suggest scaling the body and cutting the tail off. The removal of the scales helps you get a more solid hook-up, especially when a softer bite is delivered. With the tail removed, fresh scents are delivered at intervals, which keeps a scattered smell around your bait. My father used to always say, ‘The larger the bait, the bigger the bite!’ In this case, it’s true. The bigger piece of bait used normally does attract a much larger shark bite! All I have to say now is make sure you have plenty of line and a fisherman or two strong enough to reel them in. We are now offering inshore and offshore shark fishing trips. June is mackerel catching time. For Spanish mackerel, all you need is a small 0 or 00 Clark spoon to get this catching job done. These spoons work great being pulled 10 to 15 feet behind 2-oz. trolling sinkers or small planers. And if you find yourself surrounded by surface holding Spanish mackerel, you can stop and pitch your most favorite small size lure. Just about anything will work if it is shiny and matches the hatch. The king mackerel bite will get hot and heavy. Best artificial bait is the ever-popular Drone spoon pulled at 5 to 7 knots behind deep-running planners. I like using at least 30 feet of leader between the Drone spoon and the planer. Fish live bait on Duster skirt rigs with stinger hooks in tow. Best live baits are going to be the nervous baits, which are Spanish sardines, cigar minnows or any small, shiny bait that can move up/down quickly in the water column. King mackerel like bling! So, give them what they want!”

Georgia Saltwater Fishing Page

Offshore: Capt. Judy Helmey reports, “This is month when most offshore fishermen have been waiting for, and here’s why. Just about all fish that you can catch in the ocean will have arrived. The 2025 catching season so far has not let us down, with fishermen catching lots of cobia around buoys, artificial reefs and Savannah Snapper Banks. Best baits used for cobia are live eels under beefed-up adjustable floats or Carolina-style rigs. Believe it or not, live prawn or regular size shrimp (dead or alive) is another old-time favorite. Live bait always triggers a hit quicker. However, if you don’t have live bait on hand, I suggest giving the dead stuff a try. Just give them time to smell, eat and don’t set the hook too soon. If you happen to have some old-time weighted artificial eels, this is another bait that will trigger a hit. Just remember when a fish is motivated to hit your bait, your chances are much better for a solid hook-up. To add to this already good catching time, there are grouper, vermilion, triggerfish and black bass. As far as bait for groupers, I suggest using a large live fish. It does look like we might have a few days of a genuine red snapper season. I will report those days in the July 2025 fishing report. I have been focusing on catching large vermilions, blue fish and porgies when targeting big groupers. I suggest using a Carolina-style rig. The leader used can be as short as 6 feet and as long as 30 feet. When using this style, I suggest a 12/0 to 14/0 circle hook. This type of rig allows the bait quite a bit of swimming freedom, which brings in the attention of a larger fish bite. When using very large live baits, you will have a better chance not to hook up a genuine red snapper, which will give the large-mouth-hinge-dropping gag grouper a better chance. When using a single- or double-hook bottom rig, I suggest using live/fresh dead cigar minnows or Spanish sardines. These baits are known for triggering a bite, meaning fish strike quick and strong. When targeting the larger species of vermilion snapper, I suggest the liveliest cigar minnows, Boston mackerel or Spanish sardines that you can catch. To catch bait, you will need to bring along more than one set of sabiki gold-hook rigs, which works great when dropping over any sort of structure at the artificial reefs. Please know that when fishing for any fish listed under snapper/grouper complex, you must use circle hooks. Go here to http://safmc.net for all current federal regulations and details. Please know there have been some changes regarding bottom fishing. When visiting this site, go to regulations and best fishing practices.”

Blue Water: Capt. Judy Helmey reports, “This is the time of the year when dolphins, aka mahi mahi, and wahoo go into the wandering mode. This means you could find yourself catching blue-water fish while fishing in green water. The Savannah Snapper Banks is a great place for these blue-water fish to wander to. Toward the middle of June, those fish that travel and feed near the surface show us the way. Mahi look for anything floating that provides any sort of shade, which makes for a great place for small baitfish to school. While these fish are feeding near the surface, the sea birds with their keen eyesight are picking up the leftovers. The large and mighty wahoo will also make their way into the green zone. Normally a large wahoo is accompanied by a yellow-bill tropical bird or some sort of fast and unusual looking seabird. If you happen to see a single bird diving fast and then making erratic air moves, it is most likely mimicking the movement down under of a large feeding wahoo. I have caught some nice 100-lb. wahoo while putting this knowledge to work. All you must do when you find yourself in this target-rich environment is to let the bird that is watching the fish’s movement show you the way. I always present the bait ahead of what I thought was this fish’s intended direction. During this time of the year, I normally keep larger baits, such as red porgy and vermilion snappers, in the livewell. My favorite rig is a beefed-up king mackerel rig using a single, extra heavy-duty hook. It’s best to place the hook near the tail section, but you want to make sure the bait can still swim somewhat normally. Wahoo have a great nickname, which is  ‘tail cutter.’ It’s this fish’s goal to chop off the tail and then turn back for the spoils. Why not hook it up on the first pass? Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, but most of the time it did! The bottom line is it’s time to GO FISH!”