Georgia Saltwater Fishing Report – March 2006

Saltwater:

Inshore: Capt. Greg Hildreth said as usual, the southern Georgia coast is blessed with an awesome shallow bite for redfish. “They are biting great in shallow water, and it’s pretty much sight fishing. I had a guy last week who caught nine, all on artificials — Spike-It soft jerkbaits,” Capt. Greg said. The mild winter has kept a trout bite going, too. “Some guys I know had a limit of trout last weekend. They were fishing about 12-feet deep. The trout bite will get a lot better this month as the water warms up.”

Nearshore: The sheepshead bite is real good on the nearshore wrecks and reefs, Capt. Greg said. “The big bull reds are on the nearshore wrecks as well. By next month they’ll be back on the beach again.”

Offshore: Right now it’s that time of the year when the fishing can be great, or it can be frustrating, said Capt. Judy Helmey, but good times are right around the corner, as in the next week or so. “I fished an area last week two times. The first day the sea smoke (fog) was so bad that we never saw anything until about 1 p.m. that afternoon. It was rough, the drift was fast — the fish did bite, but it was tough. However, we did catch quite a few bottom fish, but not a lot of big fish. We caught and released quite a few juvenile red snapper. The next day we fished the same area with absolutely no fog whatsoever. The fishing was much better. We caught large sea bass, vermilion snapper, more juvenile red snapper, some real large flounder, and hog-nose snapper. The sun was shining and all was good.” Capt. Judy says that now’s a good time to book a trip for a big snapper or grouper. “Big-fish times are just around the corner,” she said. “My records show that the big ‘sow’ red snapper and large freight-train-pulling-grouper bite is just a few weeks away. By the time you get to that part of the fishing report they might already be jumping on our hooks!”