This time of year can be very pleasent on the water, especially when the weather is nice which we have been very lucky with the last few weeks. The biggestt favtor to this, is there just are not that many other boats out and it allows us to really relax and do our own thing most days. Along with that, the fishing has been great. The redfish have been fired up and biting throughout the begining of the year. The trout were initially a bit slow after the snow storm but as of the last few days have started biting good again as well. The brackish trips are producing far more on the artificial front. Most of these have been fishing smaller lures around deeper 10 foot of water structure. You will also pick up trout and bass the same way. On the inshore front closer to the cost, the fish have been very keyed on baby shrimp and various baitfish fry. There are a few way to catch them. Pitching livebait in conjestion points at low tode where the fish group up has been done great and is my recommendation for the best numbers. However, many days there are also quite a few school available for sight fishing on the flats. The sight fishing has been significantly harder, however the fish can be caught by using very small (2inch) plastics and cast far in fromt of where they swim in order not to spook them. The trout have been hanging in the middle of some deeper bends of large creeks. When we do come across trout, my advanced live forward facing sonar helps ensure we are castimg right on top of these deeper schools. One perk about this time of year, is we can be very versatile, if there are specific ways you want to fish. Weather that is, standard live bait fishing, covering water with artificials around cover or wven soght fishing.

The recent snow we had gave us almost record breaking cold water temps. In most areas, it looks like we were able to avoid a fish kill because the fish made it out deep before hand. Although, the seatrout were mostly inactive last week, we could still see them alive and well on out Live Forward Facing Sonar. With this warm week, we expect them to become more active and produce more on our trips as they have been. The redfish on the other hand, produced good numbers for us still last week. There are a few different patterns to target them now depending on what you are after. One trip we fished deeper water in the 10-15 foot range. This produced around 30 large redfish and was very action packed for us and by far the best method in the colder water. However, sight fishing can still be done too. One creek we actually saw several hundred big redfish cruising the shallows. The key in the cold here was finding samdy bottom instead of mud because the sand picks up more heat from the sun. The sight fishing is much more challenging than fishing deeper water or live bait fishing because of the colder water in the shallows. However is is still an incredible sight to see and the ones who do bite provide the most reqarding feeling! We have a couple of warmer weeks inbound that should get the trout more fired up and the redfish should bite better on all of their patterns.

The weather has been changing a lot lately as we egt into winter. We have had still some incredible inshore days but also some tougher ones. I would say it is outside of peak season now but still very good over all. One thing that has gotten even better during the winter transition is our brackish fishing. These fish further up the river near freshwater seem to really fore up once it gets colder. We have been running all artificials on these trips and in many situations catch redfish and bass off of the same spots which is something you can do very few places. The numbers for both reds and bass are great and there ate also often seatrout ans saltwater striper that show up as well!

Todays trip was a quick one. We fished just two spots, we fished a trout spot and a redfish spot. The trout spot was a less obvious creek mouth with a sandy point and sparce rocks. Here we had a decent trout bite for the hour we stayed using mud minnows. After that, we went to a popular fishing area, however we far back in the creek past where the other boats are able to get to. There is a deeper hole there. We went at low tide when the redfish condense in the hole to wait on the water to come back in. The last week the hole has ad large numbers in it and when timed right we had found fresh fish consistantly replenishing it from the back of the creek as the tide falls further. Here they were feeding on shrimp heavily. We wven saw some blowing live shrimp out of the water alomg the bank. We caught fish quickly almost every cast the rest of the trip and lost count of how many we caught. We had many doible ups and wven two triple ups on fish. This was definitely as good as a trip can get and not wvery day is necessarily this good. However, this cooler weather has had them fired up very well and most trips are very productive right now.

The super hot foshing is still going on and we dont see any reason why it should stop soon. Today we fished 8 hours. We spent the first couple searching around and picked off some trout here and there. Finally we pulled i to a great creek where we were able to spemd the rest of the trip putting around 50 redfish in the boat! There are lots of ways to catch fish now. The seatrout are schooled up well and can be caught around hard bottom banks and creek mouths using corks with minnows or small soft plastics. The redfish bit has also been very good and we are seeing larger schools of them. Low tide offers chances to find them in depresions within creeks and and cruising the shallows feeding. Most can be caught fishing target spot like these depresjons while you may also see some waking in the shallows that can be sight fished. Virtually all of the reds we see feeding right now are blowing up on small creek shrimp. Additionally, redfish can also be caught on secluded main creek docks.

Overall we have had a much warmer than usual fall. However, the last two weeks have brought some consistantly cooler days and finally brought down the water temp. In turn, it has really turned the fish on. The last couple of weeks have been the best so far this year. The redfish are beginning to get in larger schools and can be caught on a variety of techniques. The seatrout are starting to show up as well. We have also been catching some random flounder on our last few trips. The pictures above are from a brackish water trip in the Cooper River I took on a day of the other day. The cooper right now we are only using artificial and it is consistently producing high numbers of both redfish and largemouth. The 6 and 8 hour trips have been the best by far as they allow more fishing time and allow us to travel to some other areas. However the 4 hiur trips have still been very good for redfish and the creeks in the harbor that are more local are fishing great too.