Month: October 2017

Goat Island

Every year I plan a guy’s trip with some of my best friends.  Often, we camp at Caper’s Island and surf fish, drink beer, and eat.  It’s a great time and we have been doing it for years.  This year I had a little surprise in store for them.  Some fans of our products are the owners of a house on Goat Island.  I discovered them on Instagram when they would tag pics of them holding up fish caught on Trout Eye jigs.  If you’re not from Charleston, Goat Island is a really cool and unusual place.  It’s an island just across the ICW from Isle of Palms and is only accessible by boat.  The houses range from very rustic to very nice.  I contacted them about possibly renting their place for my trip and we picked a weekend and it was on.

Dave with a “reverse push” flatty that was actually a pretty good one!

Well, their house “Goat Island Getaway” was really cozy and full of character.  It has plenty of decks, porches, hammocks and is a great place to chillax.  The fishing was not on fire, I believe due to the water temperature still being 80F in the middle of October.  Usually by this time of year we have had a few cold fronts, dropping the water temperature and turbo-charging the catching.  

Al with a nice inshore speck

Regardless, we searched around for a pattern that worked and eventually found a few fish here and there.  We even went to the jetties a couple times and everyone had a chance to be on the rod end of a freight train.  Unfortunately our landing ratio was not great…ok it was awful!  But exciting nonetheless!  

Kevin with a topwater trout

We ate like kings, as a few of our friends are great cooks and even enjoyed trout ceviche made with trout caught the same morning.  It was an awesome trip and I took a survey of who wanted to re-up for next year and it was a unanimous YES!

This 28″ topwater redfish was a blast on light tackle

If you have never visited Goat, you should give it a try.  I think I’ll be back with my wife to spend a weekend away – a vacation in our home town.

Jeff on the way to getting nearly spooled on an 8000 Penn Battle by a jetty giant

See you on the water!

My Love Affair with Riverine Striper

Shortly after I first met Ralph, he shared a pic of him and a friend from the summer time holding up a nice striper.  I couldn’t believe it!  I’d fished here in Charleston for years and only once or twice heard of one caught and the details were always a mystery.  He had been catching them for many years and so this was nothing special for him.  Ever since, I have been on a personal mission to catch them and learn more about their behavior. 

What do I mean by “riverine” striper?  Well, these are different than striper caught in the lakes in SC.   These striper exist in our coastal rivers that start as fresh water and end in the salt at our coast.  They are either stocked by SCDNR or self sustaining. 

In years gone by, the Ashley river had a strong self sustaining population of striper, and probably due to development far upstream where the water is fresh, the population has died out completely.  Any striper you catch in the Ashley has been stocked by SCDNR.  In the past many years, there has been a program to try to bring the stock back, but for mysterious reasons it has failed.  I’m paraphrasing a DNR biologist friend of mine, but they seem to last approx 2 years after being stocked, then they disappear.  When they are there, its fun because you can easily catch 10 in a trip, but they are all pretty small, generally under 14″ or so.  Last year, I heard of exactly 1 striper caught in the Ashley.  They haven’t been stocked in 2 or 3 years…

Same is true I believe for the Wando river.  The Wando is unique because it isn’t fed by a large source of fresh water so its much saltier.  But, when the fish are stocked you can catch a bunch way up at the top of the river (above Paradise Landing).  I once caught a tagged striper below the 41 bridge and DNR told me that was as far down as they had had a recapture.

The Cooper river, however, is special.  As is the Combahee and Edisto (but, alas, I have yet to target them in those rivers so I can’t comment on experience).  Striper are fairly prevalent in the brackish portion of the Cooper and based on my personal experience, the numbers seem to be improving over the last several years.  I base this on my personal catches, and also the fact that both the Youth (27″ by Grant Allison, caught on my boat) and Adult SSWA club records (29″ caught recently by your’s truly) for striper have been broken in 2017.  

Grant Allison and his Youth Record 27″

 

Here are a few observations I have made over the years

  • They are very hard to pattern, as they are kind of “marauders”, meaning they move around a lot – chasing bait fish schools around I believe.  They don’t hold on particular structure on particular tides like redfish and trout do.  For this reason, in the Fall, I never fish there without a rod with a topwater tied on and readily available.
  • In the spring time, around March, they spawn.  I have caught a male that was as fat as a football, and it wasn’t eggs or food he was full of!
  • They seem to move down into the lower reaches of the river in the Summer.  I’m not sure why, but it might be because of lower oxygen levels upriver due to the extremely hot water.
  • Fall time is prime time.  If you are in the right place at the right time, you might see an acre of fish push a bait fish school up and the water erupts with breaking fish.  If you are prepared (see above) you can have an absolute blast catching them while it lasts.  While it lasts, is the key phrase here
  • Nothing, and I mean nothing, beats the aggressive explosion of a striper topwater strike in October, inshore anyway.
Dave Fladd’s Adult Record 29″

Well, they are an amazing sport fish, and I’d like to make a case for conservation.  It’s my dream that riverine striper are made illegal to keep, at least until their numbers are much, much higher and sustainable.  The lower slot is 27″ and I’ve only seen or heard of 3 or 4 taken at 27″ or above.  This suggests that all keepers are kept, and I wouldn’t be surprised.  Just because there are legal catch and creel limits doesn’t mean we can ignore them and release all fish regardless of size. These fish are truly too important to keep.

For the past several years I have fin-clipped the striper I catch for analysis by SCDNR. They analyze the DNA to tell if the striper are stocked and if so, when and where.  If you would like to get involved, go to dnr.sc.gov and get a kit.

Lastly, it’s time for an annual challenge that I call the “Margarita Slam”.  It consists of Redfish, Trout, Flounder, Striper, Largemouth.  It’s a brackish water super-slam that is a real challenge and quite rewarding to accomplish.  To count, it must be completed on the same trip.  Plus 100 points if you do it using the same artificial lure setup.  I’ve accomplished the latter exactly once 🙂