Grand Strand Fishing Report: Bluefish are being caught off piers this week

Estuary

Look For: Spotted seatrout, red drum, flounder, black drum, sheepshead, bluefish.

Comments: A trio of Little River captains, Capt. Landon Brice, Capt. Patrick Kelly and Capt. Chris Ossman, headed out Thursday for some fun fishing, armed with live shrimp along with a fly rod. At midday, they had landed seven trout while floating live shrimp in the creeks of the Little River vicinity. “One 26 inches and the rest over 20 inches,” said Kelly, from the water. “We’re fishing in the creeks on the outgoing tide, about 4-5 feet down.” Moments later, Kelly said Brice had hooked up with a nice trout on the fly rod, and wound up landing a 20-inch fish on a shrimp pattern. Capt. Mike McDonald of Gul-R-Boy Guide Service found red drum, or in his words, spottails, very active on a trip last weekend south of Georgetown. McDonald’s crew caught 28 spottails, one trout and one sheepshead on the trip. ”We were catching spottails one in every four casts using grubs,” said McDonald. “I broke out the stinky shrimp and we were catching one on every cast.” McDonald was fishing well south of Winyah Bay because “the bay is full of fresh, muddy water and the Santee is full of flood waters.” McDonald noted a water temperature in the 62-64 degree range. Capt. Dan Connolly of O-Fish-Al Expeditions went on a scouting trip Wednesday in Murrells Inlet. “I achieved my goal of catching black drum,” said Connolly. Connolly was using fresh dead shrimp, with the black drum measuring in the 16-18 inch range. Connolly noted a water temperature of 58-62 degrees depending on the tide and time of day.

Inshore

Look For: Bluefish, weakfish, black sea bass, sheepshead, whiting, croaker, flounder, Spanish mackerel.

Comments: Capt. Jeff Maples of Reel Salty Charters in Murrells Inlet is chomping at the bit for Spanish mackerel to show up, and feels like they may have already arrived, although none have been reported caught yet. “There have been reports of Spanish in Charleston,” said Maples. “There’s marks on my fish finder that make me think the Spanish are here. It shows mackerel as vertical streaks and my screen was lit up with them (on Monday).” On that Monday trip to a near-shore reef on a misty, foggy and cool day, Maples used mud minnows to catch weakfish, bluefish and black sea bass, but no Spanish. Steve Gann of Cherry Grove Pier still has some angler action and reported bluefish have been caught this week. Gann also reports juvenile whiting and puffers have been caught. The ocean water temperature was 61 degrees on the surface at both Cherry Grove and Apache Pier Thursday at 1 p.m.

Offshore

Look For: Wahoo, blackfin tuna, dolphin, king mackerel, bonito, grouper, red snapper, amberjack, vermilion snapper, triggerfish, red porgy, black sea bass.

Comments: Things are starting to heat up in the offshore waters, but for now trolling boats are mainly producing wahoo and blackfin tuna. While a few scattered dolphin have been caught, it will be a few more weeks until they show up in good numbers. Plenty of bonito along with king mackerel are also being found in the vicinity of the break, although kings should be pushing further inshore with the warming trend. Bottom fishing is producing the normal good catches of black sea bass, vermilion snapper, grey triggerfish, red porgy, white grunts, amberjack, grouper and red snapper. Of course, red snapper must be released indefinitely in the South Atlantic region and the annual shallow-water grouper spawning season closure continues through the month of April, including gag grouper, black grouper, red grouper, scamp, red hind, rock hind, yellowmouth grouper, yellowfin grouper, graysby, and coney.

Freshwater

Look For: Bream, bass, catfish, crappie.

Comments: “Get off the couch and go fishing,” Ronald “Catfish” Stalvey of Stalvey’s Bait and Tackle in Conway said with a laugh Thursday afternoon. “You don’t have anything else to do - stay quarantined on the river.” Stalvey has seen a major uptick in angler action this week, and the fishing is good despite fairly high river levels. “The water levels are still up, but the water temperatures are perfect,” said Stalvey. “There are a lot of fish moving in to spawn, some of them are spawning right now (including) bream, bass and crappie.” Bream are hitting crickets in 2-6 feet of water and bass are attacking Texas-style rigged worms and craw baits. But catfish action may be the hottest of all, with plenty of blues and flatheads being caught. Prime baits for catfish are fresh cut eel and fresh cut shad.

This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 11:23 PM.