May 25, 2017 – Fishing reports and Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not story! Thanks for reading!
Fishing statement: To try to ensure that fishing stays in the hearts of those that loves it!
While fly fishing with Captain Kevin Rose, Tom Duntemann of Virginia Beach caught this nice flounder! As it turns out it made a great dinner special for Captain Kevin who is, by the way, a very good cook! This is what happens when the fisherman a catching doesn’t want to partake in any of the eating!
Please meet Eamonn Rafferty age 5 of Savannah Georgia and Captain Judy holding his just caught super-sized whiting! I took Eamonn and his family out to Wassaw Sound to do a little bottom fishing. When 5-year-old Eamonn arrived, as you might have already guessed, he had his rod in hand. And he also was wearing his Spiderman life jacket vest! The fact of the matter is the Spiderman special rod/reel combo with still in the wrapper. So Eamonn and I carefully removed it. We threaded the line through the rods eyes and tied on a single hook bottom rig. We went through the basic Spiderman rod/reel operations and Eamonn started his fishing day with a smile! Since I had never used the Spiderman special type of set up it also was a learning experience for me! Don’t worry Eamonn seemed to know more about how it worked than I did. There weren’t a lot of bells and whistles it so reminded me of my old Zebco 202! As I did over some 55 years ago, all Eamonn had to do was to press the release button, drop his to the bottom, and wait for a hit. Eamonn was the most patience fisherman I have seen in a long time. The first hit broke off his line and he didn’t even get upset. Believe me, I have seen grown fishermen throw all kinds of different degree fits over this. Not Eamonn, we just re-rigged and back to fishing he went! What did he catch? Whitings, croakers, and juvenile bonnethead sharks. For the entire 
trip, Eamonn had his bait in the water! He did ask that we release all of his fish! What do we have here? A true fish catching releasing young fisherman! Don’t I wish they were all like Eamonn?
Yes folks, back in the day, this was the ever popular ZEBCO 202! It was simple and didn’t have a complicated drag system. All you have to do was cast it and you looked like a pro every time!
And why? No birds or eagle nest – aka line tangles!
Artificial Reefs
While plain old bottom fishing at the artificial this “wedding party to be” had a catching blast. And caught fish some really interesting fish! Heck, some were even picked up at the dock!
The groom to be, Rusty James from Harlem, Georgia, hooked up and landed this nice genuine red snapper. Now I know that he is only holding the head section, but he did indeed at first have the whole fish on. While reeling in with none of us knowing exactly what he had hooked up, his line went limp for a second, then whatever was on the end made a strong serious short run, and then it stops. At this point, Rusty started reeling in the leftovers, which was a dead head weight. As soon as he got this genuine red snapper to the boat we were all amazed at the size of this fish’s head! So now here is the rub, this fish was caught in less than 60 feet of water on a very small piece of cut squid. It was a grand fighter at least until a large shark decided to eat it. I call this a lollipop bite! What is a lollipop bite? My definition…it is where a large fish, in this case, a shark inhales a fish, such as this, as far in its mouth as it can and then it just bites it. In this case, it made a clean bite right behind this genuine red snapper’s head! As you know, even if this genuine red snapper had been brought to the boat intact, we would have had to still release him, because due to federal regulations, we cannot keep red snapper. Heck, it is against the law! Now for the shark, it is still an open season! It certainly doesn’t seem fair to the fisherman or the genuine red snapper! The only winner here is the shark! And had we been able to ever just keep the head what a find fish head soup it would have made! We might have also caught “who done it!” see picture below!
A tiger by the tail! It is not a tiger shark, but it might have acted like one!
Well, we don’t know for sure, but there is a chance that this large shark has a headless genuine red snapper in its stomach! How did we get this shark to the boat? It was hooked by the tail!
Was it released unharmed? Yes Is it still swimming in these local waters? Most likely as long as the food source last! No swimming here today! The person taking this photo did a great job; I had just released this shark! It doesn’t take but seconds for them to disappear into the abyss.
Savannah Snapper Banks
Alli DeYoung is holding up a nice black sea bass, which she caught while bottom fishing at the Savannah Snapper banks. Did you know that the black sea bass is born a female and then later in its life cycle changes into a male? What do we have here? A used to be female black sea bass that has already changed into a male! Now you know from a writer’s standpoint and with all that is going on in the world at this time, this could become another very interesting story, but it would not be about fishing! Congratulations to Alli nice blackfish!
Karen East from Senoia, Georgia is holding a nice white grunt that she caught while bottom fishing with a small piece of squid. Captain Kathy is assisting! White grunts are also called hognose snapper. My father always told me that when it came to seafood groceries “Grits and Grunts” was the plate that put Florida on the map!
A ray for the day!
While heading out in the early morning I got this picture of a ray feeding on the surface. Whatever it was chasing was giving it a run for its money. In other words, this ray was working for its breakfast for sure!
Clint East holding a nice amberjack and his father Larry from Senoia, Georgia is holding his just caught genuine red snapper! I am also assisting! Why are we all leaning in like so? Because it was so darn rough!
Captain Kathy Brown is showing a big thumbs up while standing next to Clint East. Clint is holding up a just caught little tunny. How did he catch it? We were pulling a sea witch rigged with a medium ballyhoo and this fish couldn’t resist it! My father always said, “You will catch more fish out of the water if you always have some sort of lure in it!”
Please meet Fishing Team East! Larry East, his wife Karen, and their son Clint all from Senoia, Georgia had quite a fishing catching day. Yes, it was rough, but they all still fished and caught. They caught black sea bass, triggerfish, white grunt, ocean perch, vermilion snapper, and little tunny. They released many hard to find genuine red snappers and large reefs sharks. All and all it was a very active fish catching day!
Larry and Karen own a farm in Senoia and believe it or not, but they film the TV series “Walking Dead” on/around their property. Now, when their farm is not being leased to the Walking Dead, the East family offers fox hunting trips. They also raise horses as well as other farm animals, grow their own food, and eat what they hunt. They are very interesting family self-sufficient. Well, when and if food shortages ever happen, I know where I am headed!
“Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not!”
This is my father Captain Sherman I Helmey sitting at the helm of his old wooden boat “Miss Jerry.” I wish this picture had shown the big compass that was attached to the dash right in front of the big ship’s wheel that he has his hand on. The dash of the Miss Jerry was so big that as a child I used to sit on it as we made way into the ocean. I had a great view. Right above my father’s left ear is a bracket mounted on the wall. It’s empty in this picture. However, these brackets, which were located on both sides of the boat, held glass bulbs that were full some sort of colored liquid. According to daddy, if there was a fire on board, you were supposed to grab the bulb out of the bracket and throw it into the fire. When the bulb broke the liquid, whatever it was, was supposed to help put the fire out!
The “gun looking handle” mounted on the boat’s ceiling (to the left of the picture) was a manual handle for daddy big spotlight. Apparently, daddy traveled a lot at night, because he always made sure the “spotlight was working as well as clean!” As a child, I was forever washing the bird poop off the spotlight lens.
I remember this is it was just yesterday. My father would drive and smoke that big “King Edward cigar” while the customers would stand around his chair hanging on every word that came out of his mouth. I do have to admit even though I heard these stories over and over again they were still very interesting! The best part was you really never knew what daddy was going
to say about fishing or to those that wanted to do so! I will leave you with this one-liner, “That’s not the same wife you introduced me to the last time!” On some occasions after this was said, “We either fished or not!” I just wish everyone could have met him! He was a “sports model” for sure!
Questions I should have asked but didn’t!
My father was a “rounder” for sure! This means he did a lot of things that some just dared to secretly dream about! He worked or should I say, “Played” during all sorts of fun time eras! When there were shortages of any kind he would always figure out how to have plenty of what wasn’t available. Take hosiery for instance. There was a time when hosiery wasn’t available making the demand unbelievable. My father had plenty somehow! To this day I don’t know if he sold them or just gave them away to all of his girlfriends. According to my father, he was around when you had to have a ticket of sorts to purchase certain things like meat or gasoline. Once again my father had all the fresh meat he wanted and plenty of gas to go in his car to pick it up!
I can see him now telling his tales with a smile on his face. It’s almost like he was reliving everything he was saying! I can see him right now as he navigated his way out of the sound into the ocean. He always had plenty of customers standing around him as he told some of the tallest, but very true tales. These stories could have been prompted by something as small as a piece of floating sea grass to a large boat speeding past. The bottom line to these stories is that he always had a good one to tell. Not only that, but he could always work it into making it a part of the scheme of things!
If you have ever fished with me you already know that the storytelling didn’t stop with dear old dad. I am still to this day entertaining my own customers with his great stories. Heck, I now have dozens of my own! There is one thing about a tale that’s for sure, it might change from time to time, but the truth can always be found in there somewhere!
Until now I never realized how important it was to hold on to all of those “daddy memories from the past.” There are so many questions that I wish I had asked him but didn’t. At the time I didn’t think that I would ever feel this way because if I did I would have done a better job of getting “the rest of the story!”
Thanks for reading! – Captain Judy
Captain Judy Helmey
Miss Judy Charters
Kicking Fish Tail Since 1956!
124 Palmetto Drive
Savannah, Georgia 31410
(912)-897-4921 or (912)-897-2478
(912)-897-3460 fax
fishjudy2@aol.com