Outdoors column: Day on the water nets massive snowy grouper

The sea was a choppy 1 to 2 feet at 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 21 when Chris Conklin approached the Murrells Inlet sea buoy in the Entertainer, a 23-foot Contender powered by twin 150-horsepower Yamahas.

As is his tradition, Conklin cranked up an appropriate tune – “East Bound And Down,” the theme song by Jerry Reed from the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit – as we zoomed by the sea buoy at about 20 knots.

“That always gets everybody fired up,” Conklin said.

So off we went, with part-time Murrells Inlet residents, the husband-wife fishing team of Bryan Claud and Susan Huntley Claud, joining Conklin and myself.

Conklin was heading offshore for some deep dropping, as the commercial trip limit for deep-water snowy grouper had been increased from 100 to 200 pounds a day earlier as announced by NOAA Fisheries.

The increase made heading way out to target snowy grouper an easy decision for Conklin. Being able to harvest the extra 100 pounds would help offset the considerable fuel expense of such a trip.

“Sometimes it wasn’t worth it to be able to keep 100 pounds,”’ said Conklin, owner of Seven Seas Seafood and one of 13 voting members of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Once we were several miles past the sea buoy, the seas calmed further and Conklin was able to run almost 30 knots.

By 9 a.m., we had quickly reached our destination, an area past the continental shelf about 60 miles south-southeast of the inlet.

Conklin maneuvered the boat into position over the bottom spot, and we dropped two bottom rigs down on electric reels. The heavy-duty rigs had 12-0 circle hooks baited with whole squid, with 3-4 hooks on each rig.

The clear water was a brilliant cobalt blue, as the line took well over a minute to drop over 550 feet to the bottom.

Action was a little slow at this spot, located several miles north of the Georgetown Hole. After about an hour and several drifts across the spot, Conklin moved farther north to a spot about three miles past the continental shelf, also known as the Break.

This time, still fishing in depths of over 550 feet, the action quickly picked up.

We added Spanish sardines to the bait mix, and large red porgy, some in the 4-5 pound range, began coming up. Then the snowy grouper bite picked up.

With the line stretching nearly 600 feet to the bottom, bites were difficult to detect. But a few hours later, one bite signified a significantly bigger fish was on my rod.

For several minutes, the electric reel strained to bring a sizable fish up. First, a flash of brown and white appeared through the crystal clear water, followed by air bubbles. Then in one big swoosh, a huge snowy grouper surged to the surface.

In all, the electric reels cranked 17 grouper up from the depths – 16 snowy and one yellowedge. Several of the snowy were in the 10-20 pound range, and the crown jewel of the trip was the large, 40-pound snowy.

Although the state record is 30 pounds, 3 ounces for a snowy caught out of Charleston in 2011, fish caught on electric reels cannot be considered for the mark.

To go with the grouper haul, we wound up with over 20 large red porgy plus three crazy looking orange deep-water fish called blackbelly rosefish. In addition, we caught 3-4 blueline tilefish that currently cannot be harvested commercially, and were released.

All the while, the westerly wind had calmed down and the seas were as nice as one could ever hope for 60 miles offshore.

That meant a quick ride home as Conklin made the 60-mile run in about two hours. As we reached 10 miles from the beach, a line of thunderstorms blackened the horizon. Conklin eased to the south and found a break between two storms to avoid the worst of it.

Conklin stopped at the sea buoy for everyone to check for important voicemails and texts, and for a photo op with the sun setting over the shoreline.

Then, he cranked up “The Cowboy Rides Away” by George Strait as we rode off into the sunset through Murrells Inlet.

Georgetown Wahoo Challenge

The super wahoo action offshore continued last weekend, and the inaugural Georgetown Wahoo Challenge out of Georgetown Landing Marina was the beneficiary.

The crew of Earl E Bird, operated by Capt. Ed Keelin and owned by Earle Atkinson, brought a pair of matching wahoo weighing 43.6 and 43.0 pounds to the scales for a winning aggregate of 86.6 pounds.

Hooked Soul, owned by Jonathan Staton, was second with a 76.0-pound aggregate followed by Pain Killer, owned by Dr. Hunter Stokes, in third with 75.2 pounds.

Hooked Soul landed the largest wahoo, a 47.2-pounder.

Keelin fished a ledge that dropped from 225 to 275 feet just north of the Georgetown Hole to find his winning fish. Keelin used ballyhoo with hand-tied Sea Witch skirts, with purple-black, blue-black and multi-colored skirts working best.

Keelin also had to resort to using flourocarbon leaders to get bites from the wahoo.

“We had wire out there but we didn’t get a bite on it,” Keelin said.

The inaugural tournament was a smashing success with the 42 boats competing weighing in 112 wahoo. Also, $31,000 in prizes was paid.

Other award winners were:

Second Place Largest Wahoo: Earl E Bird, 43.6 pounds

Third Place Largest Wahoo: Bruno, 43.0 pounds

Largest Tuna: Deal Maker, 15.0-pound blackfin

Largest Dolphin: Game Plan, 19.8 pounds

Lady Angler Award: Pain Killer, Laura Stokes, 40.6-pound wahoo

Youth Angler Award: Reel Easy, Walker Knowlton, 38.8-pound wahoo

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Outdoors column: Day on the water nets massive snowy grouper."