Morning surface water temperatures dropped drastically after this weekend’s rain and cold weather to about 60 degrees around Little River.
When you can get out to the nearshore reefs the fishing is phenomenal right now, and Captain Buddy Love with Captain Smiley Fishing Charters (843-361-7445) reports that 3-5 miles offshore there are tons of Spanish mackerel, bonito, summer trout, bluefish and more around. They aren’t seeing mackerel and bonito schooling on the top quite yet, but both species will take spoons. Trout seem to prefer Gulp! baits fished slowly on the bottom.
Cooler weather temporarily hurt the inshore bite over the weekend, and today on the water they had to work to catch trout and flounder. Still, there seem to be a surprisingly good number of flounder in the creeks because they are catching them just on float rigs without really targeting them. The snot grass is still prevalent and makes it hard to fish on the bottom.
Trout are being caught at creeks mouths, along banks and at the jetties. Fish are biting on both the rising and falling tide, as long as there is moving water. The best depth range has been 5-8 feet of water.
While they are catching some fish on Vudu Shrimp, Gulp! and even on the fly, live shrimp is hard to beat.
There are black drum mixed in with the trout being caught on the same live shrimp, but you can probably pick up more black drum fishing on the bottom with fresh cut shrimp. The best concentrations are also a bit deeper in 10-15 feet of water.
Unfortunately most of them are small right now.
A few redfish are being picked up as well, mostly on low tide in skinny water or holes. Some are also being caught around creek mouths on the dropping tide when everything is being flushed out of the creeks. The fish are generally now in medium-sized schools on low water.
Fresh cut shrimp is also working the best.
