Georgia Saltwater Fishing Report – November 2007

Inshore: Very good for redfish (see the article on page 50). The fishing for sea trout is also good. Capt. David Newlin said they’ve been catching good numbers of trout around St. Catherine and Ossabaw on live shrimp, and they’ve just started taking artificials pretty good. Capt. Judy Helmey has also been spending some time inshore. With continuous high winds kicking the sea conditions up, many of Capt. Judy’s customers still wanted to fish, so they stayed inshore. “Even though 31-foot boats are limited to where they can fish inshore, we still caught fish. While bottom fishing with a combination of light tackle and small pieces of bait, our customers got to experience some interesting catching action. They caught lots of whiting, which ranged from 10 to 18 inches in length. Next on the biting list were black tips, bonnet head, and Atlantic sharp nose sharks, which offered lots of action in the pulling department.”

Nearshore: Very good for Spanish mackerel. “The beachfront, nearshore artificial reefs and clear-water rips that form just offshore are great places to target this fish,” said Capt. Judy. “The world-famous Clark Spoon pulled deep, shallow or cast into the schools is hands-down your best lure for this fish. While fishing this past week we added yet another area to target for both king and Spanish mackerel. We had Sargasso weeds so thick due to the past northeast winds that it had been pushed all the way to the beachfronts. These floating fish-attracting islands do a great job for us fishermen. Where you have any sort of cover providing shade, you have small fish, which in turn attract the larger ones.We caught some of the largest Spanish mackerel that we have seen so far this year. Some were caught fishing with planers while other were hooked up trolling surface baits. On some occasions they were surface schooling.”

Offshore: The trolling bite is good for king mackerel. “The kings are thick on the artificial reefs,” according to Capt. Newlin. “We’re catching lots of fish in the 8- to 12-lb. range with a fair amount of 20-pounders mixed in.” The bottom fishing at the Snapper Banks is excellent. “For those fishermen out there that really want to go fishing and add catching to your list, now is the time to go,” said Capt. Judy. “I can’t say enough about October, November and December being fish-catching months. Large red snapper and freight-train-pulling grouper are holding on most of the ledges in this area. I like to fish my isolated areas. Best baits used are going to be anything from the live stuff to the dead, old smelly ones. We carry all of the standard stuff such as squid, and then we also try to catch an array of live fish,” Capt. Judy said.