Savannah GA Shark Fishing Report
10 Aug Fishing with Major Terrell M and Family
Went Fishing with Major Terrell and his family today. First time out doing this type of fishing for his kids, so I wanted to make sure they caught a lot of fish and stayed close to shore. We fished my favorite shark hole in Ossabaw sound.
At about 7:45 I put in at Ft McAlister marina in a total Fog bank. Visibility was less then 10 ft. Thickest fog that I ever boated in. Took the boat real slow out to the channel and the fog was burned off by 9:00 with real calm seas and a great day of fishing.
The 15 year old daughter was the first to hook up with a nice 3 ft shark that was released boat side. Set a good tone for the day. Lots of small sharks and some whiting followed with everyone in the Family catching something including a four footer that was also released boatside.
Ended the day with a nice 40 inch bonnet head. Good news was I think the kids got HOOKED on doing some Salt Water Shark Fighting.
More Weekly Fishing reports below
13 July on the Mega Byte!
Fished with LT Don on my new to me Boat the "Mega Byte". Went to the barge on the DUA Artificial Reef in 40ft of water. Wave height was swells to 3ft. Left from Ft McAlister marina. The reef was 8.5 miles off shore from Ossabaw island. Dropped our first baits about 9:00 AM and fished until about 1:30 PM.
We caught about a dozen blues and a dozen grunts in the 10 to 15 inch range. in addition we caught a spade fish, and some pinfish.
We also caught about 5 small small puppy sharks (18 inch range) and a 3ft Atlantic Sharpnose using one of the Grunts for bait. Saw some signs of Spanish mackerel but I wasn't set up for Trolling or casting to them. Click the thumbnails below to see some of the catches. A link to my boat pictures is www.sharkfighter.com/boat
June 26 on the Dam Yankee
I fished alone on my boat today. Just
enjoying some time off and decided to spend a day fishing. I
put in at Ft McAlister marina and dropped bait (squid) on a nice
shark hole in Ossabaw sound at 8:55 AM. I had my first small
shark on the line at 9:05. in the first hour I had 7 small
sharks and two whiting caught. Some of the Small sharks were
double hook ups on my bottom rig as pictured in the attached
Thumbnail.
In the next hour, in addition to 4 more small sharks, I caught
another whiting and cut him for bait. I caught a HUGE stingray
and he fought HARD. He was between 4 and 5ft across with a
long tail that didn't thrill me since I was alone and thinking of
Steve Irwin. Then a bit later I caught some more small sharks
and whiting and two nice sharks in the 4ft plus range. The thumbnail
here is one of them. After this I was exhausted and pulled
anchor to head back at about 12:30. For 3 1/2 hours fishing I
caught 13 small puppy sized sharks, a 27 incher and the two four
foot sharks plus the Stingray and 4 whiting. Not a bad way to
spend a Thursday morning.
May 24, 31, June 7, 14, 21 2008 on the Dam
Yankee
I fished both the Ossabaw and St Catherines sounds near Savannah GA.
Using cut squid and live whiting. Typical fishing involved us
dropping two hook steel bottom rings with cut Squid. We would catch
a lot of Atlantic Sharpnose sharks on these rigs but also whiting.
Once we caught whiting we used it for live bait or cut bait and
floated them on the surface. We fished the deep holes right by the
drops trying to get in water between 40 an 50 ft deep.
For the weeks of May 24, 31, June 7 we caught a shark about every 20 minutes on average. The last two weeks the bite was slowed down but there was bad weather with rain right before and right after we fished. However, On June 14th we did catch a shark just over 4ft on a whiting head floated near the surface. That is right at the top of the size to which the Atlantic Sharpnose grows.
I am buying a bigger boat and then will get to some off shore fishing spots and hope to be able to provide better fish reports then.
Fishing May 18, 2008 on the Dam Yankee
Today I fished with Tom S. and for both of us it was the first time out since we returned home from 15 month deployments to Iraq. We were targeting Sharks in the Osabaw Sound. I picked up a new waterproof map at the Bass Pro Shop that showed that was marked with fishing spots and we went where it indicated Sharks in a deep drop-off near the mouth of the Sound.
The water temperature was 75 deg and depth was about 35ft. We were fishing from my 19ft Bayliner the 'Dam Yankee'. The moon was a full moon and the predicted high tide for where we were was at 7 :39 AM. Sunrise had been at 6:25.
We arrived at the fishing hole at 0740 which was right at high tide. Within 15 minutes of anchoring we had the first shark on the line. We were using frozen menhaden for bait cut into chunks. We were bottom fishing and we also had out a chum bag that had some spoiled squid and shrimp in it.
The weather was about perfect although we got some slight drizzle at about 1000 AM but we fished through it. The weather beat the heck out of the Sand Storms we were used to in Iraq. Waves were about 2 Ft and wave intensity was moderate.
We caught 11 sharks in 4 hours, the Sharks were 30 to 40 inches long. We had three sharks hooked that got away. One when I switched from cable bottom fishing rigs to a heavy mono one and the mono got cut (a mistake that I knew better then to try and I immediately went back to all wire), and one that broke my 65lbs braid (that may have been my knot). The third break off was as we were getting ready to leave. A school of bait fish was storming past the boat and all the sudden the line was hit like a runaway freight train. Next thing we know it was slack and as we reeled in the 4/0 circle hook was broke in half !! Not sure if that was the shark or something else chasing the bait school. If it was a shark it was significantly larger then the ones we landed.
It was a great day out fishing. Exactly what I had been dreaming of while in Iraq.
www.sharkfighter.com
Rob
I find the following sites always have great fishing reports:
http://www.missjudycharters.com/fishingrpt.shtml This site has the best local GA fishing reports I have found and is updated weekly.
http://www.swordfishingcentral.com
http://www.sportfishermen.com
http://cyberangler.com/fishing-reports/georgia
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