I started the day at 3am for my 6:30am flight. After another connection flight, I finally arrived in Savannah at 12pm. After picking up the rental car, I made a quick check-in and drop off at the hotel, and drove straight to Tybee Island Bait and Tackle for a non-resident license ($48 for one year…yikes!) and made my way to Tybee Pier with frozen shrimp and frozen finger mullet for bait. Here is the salt marsh that I passed by on the way to the pier.
When I arrived at the pier, someone was at the end fighting a large fish. It ended up being a large stingray with a wing span of about 4 feet!
I used a 2-hook bottom rig with 4oz pyramid sinker on the medium 7’ spinning rod. The mainline was 8lb and the leader for the bottom rig was 15lb. This was my rod to fish with shrimp. On my shark rod, I used circle hooks with the bottom rig as well but it is fished with 30lb mainline and leader with an UglyStik Tiger and a Jigmaster. This shark rod will be fished with cut mullet.
I went straight to the “T” of the pier where the water is the deepest. It didn’t take too long before I had a hit on the light rig…and I pulled in my first new species from Georgia. It was a 10” southern kingcroaker aka whiting (Menticirrhus americanus).
I had a few more light taps when I heard the bell on my heavy rod jiggled. I waited for the rod to load up and then the bells went nuts. I quickly put down the light rod and picked up the shark rod. The fish took some line on the light drag before I set it to a heavier setting to fight the fish. It ended up not being a shark but a 1lb Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatri).
I caught another whiting before the action slowed down. So I fished near the elbow of the “T”. After a bunch of small taps, I finally got the bait stealing culprit…an 8” Atlantic spadefish (Chaetodipterus faber).
A few more soaks after, another bait thief caught in the act…a 7” crevalle jack (Caranx hippos)…which looks like it had a little run in with some predator.
I caught another after and this one had its tail bit too. I regret not dropping them back as live bait…oh well…live and learn.
Then another bait thief…a 9” Atlantic bumper (Chloroscombrus chrysurus)…which is pretty big for this species actually.
Fishing got a little slow…so I had time to enjoy some of the local scenery.
A couple more spadefish after, then the bluefish moved in. For a while, it was either a hit or a fish on every cast on the cut mullet. Every time the clicker on my Jigmaster went screaming, I thought it was a small shark…but then it was yet another bluefish. I landed 4 bluefish up to 14” long.
I fished until full dark. Fishing got a little slow just about sunset so I had time to take this pic. What a great day of fishing!
Oct 3, 2009
I had the morning free before the conference so I did a little more fishing. I started at the Lazaretto Creek Dock trying for speckled seatrout and redfish. I had freshly dead shrimp with me but the tide was on dead full tide and the water was muddy. Fish were either not around or not biting…I think they were just not around.
I went to the north jetty at Tybee Island to meet up with someone I met on the internet to chill for a bit. He was fishing for the bull redfish (large redfish that can get up to 40lbs) but the bluefish came in and put up some action. I fished a bit with a Gotcha plug since there were sightings of Spanish mackerels. I went followed a bait school for a while and made casts as I ran with it…but no luck. Since it was getting to 12pm, I said goodbye.
On the way to the parking lot, I took some pics.
Tybee lighthouse
Tybee Museum
Flying all sorts of flags…even a pirate flag!
