- The only known adult Orca in the world
- IGFA event April 14th and 15th.. Jose Wejebe event
- Fishing TV show Spanish Fly host Jose Wejebe Killed in a plane cash in Everglades City, Florida April 6th 2012
- Only in Florida
- CCA Florida – Tampa Chapter Announces Twenty-Seventh Banquet, April 22, 2012
- Fly like a bird
- Biscayne Bay Estuary deep dredge threat
- A fish named “Ball Cutters”, yes it is exactly what you think!
- Rod Naming contest, Win 1 piece 12 wt Fly rods or Spinning rods, Deadline March 26th 2012
- Ladies Only fishing tournament in Sunny Florida, March 23rd 2012, Chix n Stix
Jay Nelson
Lowcountry Soft Shell Crab
If you’ve never eaten a soft shell crab before, you need to do yourself a favor and call your local seafood market. Every spring, our blue crabs go through a molting phase and shed their hard shells, leaving behind an entirely soft body. The entire blue crab is edible after the crab has molted – even the legs and claws. There’s very little prep involved…just remove the gills or “dead man’s fingers” and cut off the eyes and mouth with a pair of culinary scissors. Dredge the crab in your favorite seafood breader and drop it in the fryer.
Unfortunately, once spring redfish in SC have had a taste of a softshell crab, they basically go lock-jaw for a short period of time and won’t eat anything else. I will tell you from experience, it HURTS to put a soft shell crab on a hook and fire it off into the sea. However, you won’t find a more effective redfish bait on a spring day when the fish won’t cooperate. Here’s one Carl was forced to feed a crab to this weekend – the crab barely settled to the bottom before this fish came along and roped it. Thank God the redfish are back on a mullet diet and things are normal again – no more fishing with culinary delicacies.
Capt. Jay Nelson
Bait-Chunking in the Wind
Wish I could have made it to Tampa this weekend for the Salty Fly – looks like a good time was had by all. Congrats to all of the winners and to Sam for coordinating such an impressive tournament. Here in SC, we had another round of 30+ mph winds that made fly/sight fishing near impossible for the weekend. Instead of sitting on the couch, we piled in the boat with a bucket full of minnows and went fishing the old-fashioned way.
Winter is one of the best times for wildlife viewing here in the Low Country. I snapped a pic of this great egret and realized once I got home that it was sporting a radio transmitter. After talking to one of my buds at the wildlife refuge, it sounds like this bird may be one the gulf oil spill birds. Nice to know it is doing well. One of them has already been tracked as far north as Detroit.
Jay Nelson www.winyahguide.com
Aperture Books & Borders FX Plugin
Been playing with new ways to present pictures to friends/clients and came across a pretty cool feature in the photo editor I use – Aperture 3. The software allows you to select a number of photos and then include them in “book” format. The intention is for you to arrange your photos to form a coffee table book or a book to share with family (I’m actually considering doing a coffee table book for the house with some fishing pics). Coffee table material aside, I think the “book” layout is pretty cool just for one single photo assortment. You can document a day’s worth of fishing on one big photo collage…just chose several photos and click “new book”. You can tweak the size of each photo and color the background however you want. You can also use the borders fx plugin to add text without going into photoshop. I used it to give a friend of mine some ideas on a new flyer for his charter business…they’ve got tons of letter fonts to chose from. You could potentially arrange flyers, business cards, or whatever with your photos and designs without having to fork out a bunch of cash. Anyway, hope this is useful for somebody out there. I’ve had fun messing around with it.
January Redfish Trip
Summer Grass Flat Fishing
Random Georgetown Pics
Douglas’ Flyer
Bluebird Low Country Duck Shoot
Went with friends out to the Santee Delta on Friday morning to try and shoot some ducks. The fog was so thick that it took us over two hours to get 9 miles in the boat. Once we made it to the blind (an hour after shooting time), the fog lifted and we were were greated with some unblieveable fishing weather. Not a cloud in the sky or a hint of wind – not the weather you are hoping for when packing up your waterfowl gear the night before. Regardless, we were able to shoot at some decoying birds and managed to scratch a few out. Honestly, I could have gone without pulling the tirgger at all in a blind that beautiful. When watching the sun come up over a Low Country rice plantation, its hard not geting a little overwhelmed thinking about the history of a place like that. Imagine the heat and the mosquitos in the summer while hauling rice out of the fields. It must have been brutal. The hurricane shelter in the photos was built in 1822 – hard to believe the structure is still intact with orginal bricks and beams.
Loon Outdoors “Nip N Sip” – Holiday Gift Idea
Came across a cool product from Loon Outdoors that I thought I would pass along…its is called a “Nip N Sip”. When fishing aboard someone else’s boat, I’m always fumbling around trying to find scissors or something to cut leader material and braid with. The Nip N Sip may be the answer – it is a line cutter on one end and a bottle opener on the other end. Two things that can come in handy on a weekend fishing trip. There’s also a needle for clearing hook eyes. The Nip N Sip is a solid piece of stainless steel that should stand up to plenty of abuse and bottle openings – and it fits easily on your key ring. Would make a great gift or stocking stuffer for the angler in your life. www.loonoutdoors.com
Poor Man’s Pheasant Hunt – South Carolina Marsh Hens
Seems like all of my buds have been taking off for Canada duck hunts and South Dakota pheasant hunts. They’ve been killing me with pics of piled-up waterfowl and flushing ground-birds. Not everybody can just take off for a week of bird hunting up north. Lucky for us, redfish aint the only things roaming our grass flats. Folks have been hunting marsh hens in coastal South Carolina for years and some of us feel obliged to carry on the tradition. In the fall, hunters push skiffs through flooded spartina grass hoping to jump groups of wary mud-chickens. These birds don’t flush until you’re right on top of them…kind of like a saltwater pheasant. Yeah its a close shot…and it seems like an easy one…but most bird hunters aren’t used to their quarry flushing that close. More shots are missed than you would expect. When a cold front pushes through during a fall flood tide, I can’t think of any better way to spend the afternoon. All you need is a hunting license and a migratory bird permit to hunt these birds…and the daily bag limit is pretty darn liberal. Get out an try to flush a few up.
Jay Nelson www.winyahguide.com
Low Country Channel Bass
Ever wondered what your wildlife biologists are doing for your fishery? I got an education when the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources visitedGeorgetown,SCOctober 3rd-5th to sample our adult red drum population. Using a 56ft research vessel called theSilver Crescent, the folks from DNR tagged and released around 150 breeder-sized red drum and more than a hand full of sharks. TheSilver Crescentis a long-lining rig that deploys multiple lines of 600 lb. monofilament that stretch 1/3 mile across its target zone. Each line has 40 droppers with 15/0 circle hooks baited with cut mullet. Surprisingly, gut-hooked fish and fatalities are pretty much unheard of – they have this operation down to a science.
In the fall, thousands of man-sized red drum move inshore from the ocean to spawn. The large concentration of post-spawn fish makes the species an easy target for both biologists and recreational anglers alike . DNR samples adult red drum from August through December each year in order to keep a good handle on the population’s stability from one year to the next. They want to make sure that these breeding fish are healthy and in good numbers so that recreational anglers can enjoy year-round fishing in our estuaries well into the future. Good news – our adult red drum population looks healthy according to DNR biologists, meaning we can continue to expect great fishing in our shallow water estuaries!
The spawning redfish get a lot of attention from recreational anglers in the fall and SCDNR says there’s nothing wrong with that. We just need to approach the adult fish with a little respect – after all they are pumping our estuaries with new fish every year. SCDNR biologists recommend the following:
1. Use circle hooks (we used 15/0) – that’s way bigger than my tarpon hooks! Not saying you should use 15/0 hooks, but they worked for us and it limits the number of swallowed hooks.
2. Use heavy tackle – stout rods, strong leader, and heavy line. Get the fish to the boat quick and avoid whipping its ass too bad. The intention is to release it alive. We see way to many floaters in muddy bay every year due to angler abuse.
3. Use short leaders – this helps prevent gut-hooking the fish which in many cases will kill the fish.
4. Limit your catch to just a few of the breeders. Get out there and get your picture taken with a giant redfish, but don’t sit there and hammer them all day. The fish are there to spawn – let em get it on. If you bring a fish out of the water for pictures, get them back into the water as soon as possible. Nothing wrong with a quick photo, but the longer the fish is out of water, the less the chance of them making a full recovery.
Nobody is trying to get on a soap-box at all – it is just important to acknowledge the work that DNR does each year so that we can continue enjoying our recreational angling opportunities. If you ever have any questions about how to handle these fish, just ask one of your local fisheries biologists at www.dnr.sc.gov .
External tags for recreational anglers to report. DNR immediatley got a recapture from a fish we tagged on Tuesday – the fish had moved 8 miles from where we tagged it the previous day!
“Pit Tag” – these get embedded in the fish like microchipping your pet pooch. It will last a lifetime so they can keep track of the 40 and 50 year olds. The external tags can wear out after 10 years or so.
Scanning a fish for a pit tag.
A very special thanks to Bryan Frazier, DNR Biologist, for inviting me along and to biologists Henry DaVega, Erin Levesque, Michelle Taliercio, and Capt Rob Dunlap for putting up with me for the day. You guys are awesome at what you do – thanks for keeping an eye on our estuaries so that we can get out there and forget our worries ashore.
Jay Nelson
www.winyahguide.com
Wooden Boat Show – Georgetown, SC
Today was the 22nd annual Wooden Boat Show here in Georgetown, SC – in my opinion this is Gtown’s coolest event. Every year people come from miles around to enjoy the hand-crafted boats, food, and good southern company. If you are into hand-built boats or wooden boats, then you need to add this to your calendar for 2012.These boat-builders have skills – hands down. There’s always some amazing boats on display, but the real highlight is the boat building competition that goes on throughout the day. Contestants get the afternoon to build a small wooden boat from scratch and then race it across a section of the river. There’s always a couple of them that sink, which makes for a rowdy race. If you are interested check out www.woodenboatshow.com – the crowd gets bigger every year.
The Wooden Boat Show didn’t start until lunch so Chad and I slipped out at dawn before the festivities got fired up. The weatherman called for a 5mph wind but we were greeted with a stiff 20mph…imagine that. Our fly fishing plans got 86′d, but we scratched out a few belly crawling reds nonetheless.
Update: After posting this I actually had a chance to meet the builders of the boat in pics 3-5. They were putting the boat in the water for the first time today at one of our local boat ramps. A guy from Georgetown actually had this boat built to be the tender for his yacht (yeah – he’s got it going on). The boat was built by Shearline Boatworks in Morehead City, NC. Check them out at www.shearlineboatworks.com .
Steam engine wooden skiff – damn what a cool boat. They actually fired this thing up for everybody to see.
The young grom you see at the bow of this boat actually built this rig from hand on-site…he was the youngest competitor to ever enter the wooden boat show’s boat building competition. Afterwards, he rowed his boat across the river amongst the competition - the kid is hardcore!
Jay Nelson
www.winyahguide.com
A Welcome Change of Season
We had our first taste of fall this weekend as temps dropped into the 40′s at night and didn’t climb much above 70 during the day. We headed out with jackets and blue jeans to enjoy what may be one of our last good “tailing tides” of the season. The winds picked up with the cold front, but the fish didn’t seem to mind – they were happily tailing and cruising the spartina flats for fiddler crabs. As we were searching the flat for tails, a dozen blue winged teal decided to take rest in the flooded grass. As we poled closer to the ducks I commented to Douglas that it would be “awesome if a tail popped up” – well sometimes you get what you wish for. Watching a fish tail its brains out alongside a group of migratory ducks is a pretty cool way to ring in the fall season. This is my favorite time of year without a doubt – football, family, food, happy fish, and a cool breeze in the air.
Jay Nelson www.winyahguide.com
South Carolina Tarpon
Ended up on a nice group of migratory tarpon off Georgetown, South Carolina this morning and wanted to try to get some photos of them rolling. Some of the pictures came out OK, but I still need some practice with tarpon photography. Not to mention my hands were probably shaking out of excitement. I would say the mullet run has officially started here. The bait was coming down the beach pretty thick and the tarpon were feeding aggressively. The fishing should get good over the next several weeks! I’m stoked.
Jay Nelson