# 52024: Subject: Charleston Area - April-June report, South Carolina

Submitted by Capt. J.R. Waits (ip 68.58.238.62)

• Fished on 4/12/2004

• Report received: 6/25/04

Water Temperature: .
Water Clarity: .
Seas: .
Weather: .
Fishing_for: rod benders
Boat: Fish Call
captain: me

Report:
Boy, I have benn so busy and extremely slack about putting up fishing reports. So here it goes.... April was not nearly as windy as March, but it blew on some days as well. Some of the better trips in April included Larry Rabillard on 4/6 who caught and released 12 nice redfish and a flounder. Marshall Barnes also did great on 4/8 with 13 big reds. Jim Latta's travel group from California all had great trips, but Robert and Brian did best on 4/22 with 13 nice reds and a flounder!

On May 1st, Hylan Furniss and buddy fished the first Charleston Redfish Tour Tournament. The weather was steady hard rain, but the fish were loving it! We caught 15 nice reds and came in 4 hours early! We got 4th place overall and had the second largest fish in the tournament. Congrats guys!! David Stockwell did great on 5/13 catching and releasing 12 reds. We wanted to throw the fly and got the first one on the fly. The rest came on spinning gear as the wind got up. David Scott had a great day on 5/16 releasing 15 redfish. My buddy Kevin Kelly who now lives in California brought his extended family back to town. I had all the girls on my boat and we blew the boys out of the water. The girls landed 11 big reds and lost many many more! Terry Michael had a fabulous day on 5/19 fishing out of the Isle of Palms Marina. His group caught and released 12 big trout including a 4 pounder and 3 nice reds!! I traveled down to Titusville, FL to fish the Pro division of the Redfish Tour with buddy, Ronnie Pitts. We fished his Hells Bay boat in Mosquito Lagoon. WOW, this is a wonderful place to fish> ultra clear and shallow water! Unfortunately, most of the fish we found were in the 24-25" range where we needed 27 inchers to win. We caught around 15 fish the first day and 9 on the second day. We weighed two fish per day and ended up coming in 42nd out of 100 boats. We did however come across a school of the biggest redfish that I have ever seen in shallow water. There must have been 100-150 fish in the 15-40lb range! These giants were tailing in about 2-3ft of clear water> what a sight! One my first cast, I hooked a monster. It took quite a while on the light spinning outfit but I landed a giant red close to 30 pounds! We chased these fish for the next hour with the fly rod, but they would not touch a thing after the first fish was hooked. Back to Charleston and our reds were biting good as well. I took Bill Watts of Gerlads Tires and new brother-in-law on 5/25. they had a great day catching and releasing 14 nice reds in our now muddy flats (everything seemed muddy after Mosquito Lagoon).

Now that June is here, so is the heat and the bonnetheads. A typical June charter would include 3-10 redfish accompanied by 6 or 8 bonnetheads> enough to wear out a grown man! On 6/2, the Riley family had a great day catching and releasing 10 bonnetheads and 2 redfish. The next day Scott and Ralston Smith got 9 bonnetheads, 3 redfish, and a ladyfish. On 6/10, Travis Anderson and dad fished the Jettys with me and travis caught the biggest flounder ever caught on my boat> 5 pounder!! They also caught several giant redfish. I have had the Shakespeare Tackle Reps in town for the last two weeks and have doen very well with them fishing for the trophy bull redfish. Mark Davis and Laverne from Cabela's did great with 5 trophies up to 28 pounds!! But, Dan Burch from Shakespeare and Rocky from Big Rock were the clear winners of the big fish catagory with a giant redfish we estimated between 35 and 40 pounds! They also caught several others including a 25 pounder and a 50-60 pound nurse shark. Thanks to all the Shakespeare reps and buyers for a great two weeks. I hope everyone is back next year. Yesterday, we went to the Jettys again and a brand new group of fish have arrived. We landed 5 trophy reds and lost several others. I think these just arrived because they were all tagged. These were older tags because they were all covered in sea growth. The Jettys are going to on fire this year!! I have not tarponed fished yet but we have seen a few roll while fishing for bonnetheads and one day while fishing for trout. I am not giving out any best tarpon dates this year because last year I found that they would bite good on just about any moon phase as long as the water looked blueish. Who wants to chase the Silver Kings with me???? We have had some tailing redfish trips as well. This is best suited for flyfishermen but we can chase them with spinning rods as well. Here the dates for tailing redfish> This years tailing dates are 6/28-30, 7/1-2, 7/26-31, 8/14-15, 8/23-29, 8/30-9/3 (morning tides!), 9/11-14, 9/15-20 (morning tides), 9/21-26, and 9/27-10/3 (morning tides). Unless specified, all of the tailing tides are in the afternoon. Some of these dates are already booked, but I still have several available! I was mentioned in this months SportFishing Magazine as a guide to call if interested in catching big bull redfish. Also, look for a feature article in next months SportFishing Magazine on Charleston's Fall Fishery. In other news, I have finally ordered the kevlar Action Craft and it should be here in the next month!! My Action Craft 1890 is still for sale at a great price of $23,000 ($4000 below bluebook). If someone buys it before my new boat arrives, I'll take another $1000 off. Also, my wife is with child agian!!> this time it is a BOY!! I hope to see everyone soon. Tight Lines......

Cheers, Capt. J.R. Waits Fish Call Charters http://www.fishcall.com (843) 509-7337

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