Squid Row
12-15-2003, 11:39 AM
Left south Charlotte at 3:30 on Friday morning with John aka.. dontcatchmany for a "day trip" to Charleston. After a visit to the bait shop to buy fiddler crabs we launched the boat and cleared the jetties at around 8am.
The weather forecast was for 10 knot winds out of the north so our plan was to hit the Capers reef, 12 miles NE of the jetties. Well the wind was 15 knots out of the east so we had to cancel that idea. Instead we hit the Charleston nearshore reef and started fishing.
We only needed to move one time all day long as we proceed to clobber the sheepshead. Our tally in the cooler was 32 sheepshead to 9+ lbs, 7 black drum to 8 lbs. We also released probably 20 more sheepshead, numerous short black sea bass, 1 redfish, a 5+lb eel, and more hackle heads than I care to remember (oyster toads).
We were going to quit fishing at 3:30 but we were just having to much fun and ended up staying until 4:30.
I experimented with 3 different types of hooks starting the day with daichi 1/0 circle hooks. Well, dontcatchmany was outcatching me by a large margin so I switched to the owner mosquito hooks that he was using and my hook up ratio dramatically improved. I then tried a mustad 1/0 j-hook and my ratio dramatically declined. Finally, I switched back to the circle hooks and employed a slightly different strategy and my hook up ratio equalled that of the mosquito hooks.
We were back on the road home at about 6:15 PM and arrived back in South Charlotte around 10 PM after a few coffee stops. We were very tired but it was well worth it.
A great day on the water, thanks to my fishing partner Dontcatchmany John for convincing me that a: we needed two pints of fiddlers instead of one, b: to fish the nearshore reef and c: to quit using those mustad hooks!
The weather forecast was for 10 knot winds out of the north so our plan was to hit the Capers reef, 12 miles NE of the jetties. Well the wind was 15 knots out of the east so we had to cancel that idea. Instead we hit the Charleston nearshore reef and started fishing.
We only needed to move one time all day long as we proceed to clobber the sheepshead. Our tally in the cooler was 32 sheepshead to 9+ lbs, 7 black drum to 8 lbs. We also released probably 20 more sheepshead, numerous short black sea bass, 1 redfish, a 5+lb eel, and more hackle heads than I care to remember (oyster toads).
We were going to quit fishing at 3:30 but we were just having to much fun and ended up staying until 4:30.
I experimented with 3 different types of hooks starting the day with daichi 1/0 circle hooks. Well, dontcatchmany was outcatching me by a large margin so I switched to the owner mosquito hooks that he was using and my hook up ratio dramatically improved. I then tried a mustad 1/0 j-hook and my ratio dramatically declined. Finally, I switched back to the circle hooks and employed a slightly different strategy and my hook up ratio equalled that of the mosquito hooks.
We were back on the road home at about 6:15 PM and arrived back in South Charlotte around 10 PM after a few coffee stops. We were very tired but it was well worth it.
A great day on the water, thanks to my fishing partner Dontcatchmany John for convincing me that a: we needed two pints of fiddlers instead of one, b: to fish the nearshore reef and c: to quit using those mustad hooks!