While inshore fishing with Captain Garrett Ross of Miss Judy Charters Paul Cranman of Savannah, his son-in-law Brandon Witkow and grandson’s son Brandon age 12 and Ethan age 9 visiting from Los Angeles, California had a bonus catching day! Due to the fires this California family had recently been evacuated from their home. They were looking for a fun day on the water…after all, they did deserve it! So with extremely high tide issues and dense fog conditions Captain Garrett showed them the catching way! The trip was a complete success this family fishing team caught enough fish for two lunches and two dinners!
While inshore fishing with Captain Garrett Ross of Miss Judy Charters Paul Cranman of Savannah and his grandson’s Brandon Witkow age 12 (holding two spotted sea trout) and Ethan Witkow age 9 visiting from Los Angeles, California had a bonus catching day! And they are all sporting serious smiles that prove it!
Inshore Fishing Report!
It’s December and Santa Clauses’ arrival is but only a few weeks away! So what does this mean to us fishermen, well, the fish are still on the bite! And of course if you are making a wish list, it’s definitely the time! The best news is that even though water temps are a little on the cold side the inshore fish bite has continued to be good. There are a couple of secrets and sometimes the boot to all fishing jokes, which is “All you need to catch fish is the perfect bait and location!” So with that being said, “The inshore fish bite is still very good that’s if you use the right bait and you fish in the right location!” Come on down, it is worth the try, and of course you got choices just like the fish do, your boat or ours!
The best bait is going to be live shrimp. However, if you can’t purchase or you can’t catch them I suggest breaking out the old minnow trap. Mud minnows have been and will always be great cold water go to live bait. This is bait that sometimes works more than once! So if you catch a fish on a minnow, it’s still intact, and wiggling I suggest giving it another try. After all it has already worked once! Another suggestion is to use two muds on the hook at one time. Sometimes just a little extra erratic movement from the bait is all it takes to get a serious bite a going!
And last but not least!
Don’t set the hook too hard, give the fish time to eat, when it’s cold water conditions prevails all things down under do everything slower, drop your anchor extra quite, no music, don’t talk loud, no break dancing on the deck, (or doing the jitterbug either) and don’t forget your net!
While inshore fishing with Captain Garrett Ross of Miss Judy Charters Brandon Witkow and son’s Brandon age 12 and Ethan age 9 visiting from Los Angeles, California had great fish catching day! This was the first catch of the day!
Our Captain Kevin Rose of Miss Judy Charters has been doing a little fun fishing, but in his case you could really call it catching! Nice Sheepshead for sure! I love the winter time colors that fish sport this time of the year! Break, Break now is the time to start considering scheduling your offshore artificial sheepshead fishing trip.
2019 Captain Judy’s Inshore/Offshore Fishing Clinics
February 23, 2019 Saturday and February 24, 2019 Sunday
On inshore/offshore boats in the water
$150.00 per person for inshore
$150.00 per person for offshore
Morning departures
Time: 8:00AM till12:00 NOON
Afternoon departures
Time: 1 PM till 5:00 PM
Snacks and drinks provided by Captain Judy Place: Miss Judy Charters dock
202 Wilmington Island Road, Savannah, Georgia 31410
912 897 4921 for more details!
Did you know that a sheepshead can hit a fiddler so fast that it can suck the insides out leaving only the empty shell left on your hook? This fish makes this feeding move so quick that you don’t even feel it even while paying attention and holding rod! And this is why I am always saying to my customers, “Check your fiddler up close and personal, because all you might be using for bait is a perfect cleaned out shell!” These clean out fiddler shell make for great Christmas presents! Why? Not too much smell and makes for a great conversation piece!
On the freshwater side…we have
While inshore with Captain Garrett Ross of Miss Judy Charter Mickey Holbrook (guide on Lanier) took what is better known a serious busman’s holiday! Long time friend Captain Garrett showed Mickey the saltwater catching way! And I am sure when the timing is right Captain Garrett might take Mickey up on his offer to take him to do a little striped bass fishing! Now for those that want to do some saltwater inshore fishing give Miss Judy Charters, 912 897 4921, and book Captain Garrett Ross. For those of you that want to do a little fresh water fishing I highly suggest giving Mickey Holbrook owner operator of MAD GILLZ Fishing Guide Service a call. (470 262 6035) There are two things that we know for a fact …and what is that? Our new fresh water connection is Mickey Holbrook! And I approved this message!
While on an inshore fact finding mission Captain Kevin Rose of Miss Judy Charters caught this fine mess of inshore fish. Zeke Nichols’s was celebrating his birthday while fishing with his friend Henry Traynor and his dad Chris Nichols. (All from Savannah, Georgia) This fishing birthday party for Zeke turned out to be a fog cutting big tide catching fish kind of a day! All in all it turned out great!
While on an inshore fishing Captain Kevin Rose of Miss Judy Charters Zeke Nichols’s caught this nice slot red fish!
While inshore fishing with Captain Kevin Rose of Miss Judy Charters Zeke Nichols and his friend Henry Traynor caught some really nice fish. This is just one of the red fish that made its way to dinner table.
While on an inshore fishing Captain Kevin Rose of Miss Judy Charters Zeke Nichols’s caught this sheepshead! What did it eat? Live shrimp! What else does this fish like to eat? Small stone crabs, fiddler crabs, mussels, barnacles, and any sort of marine life that comes wrapped in a shell!
Offshore artificial reefs report
There is one thing that you can count on for sure especially this time of the year and what it that? Unsettled weather conditions and predictions. But if you happened to get a great calm offshore day I suggest going for it! Why, “WE GOT FISH!”
The artificial reefs are looking better every time I visit them! Why? We do have a black sea bass build up in artificial reefs located in 50 to plus feet of water. In the shallower reefs, when targeting black fish you can keep it is a 50/50 ratio. What does this mean? 50% of the black fish will be the legal keeping length of over 13 inches and the other 50% will be shorts! So if you were fishing the artificial reefs in this area DUA, KC, or SAV you could find yourself catching and keeping a nice mess of black sea bass, but a lot of practicing might be in your future! So if this is the plan, I suggest go with a lighter tackle set up and going with my basic drop through rig. Why? Because every fish you hook up with feel like a keeper whether it is or not! Why do this? Because it is fun just catching fish!
Captain Judy’s Drop through Rig!
This rig can be used anywhere at any time. It is such a show starter that once I give this set up to one person, everyone wants one! It is the simplest rig ever to make: Slide a single egg sinker on your main line and then tie you hook on directly. Weight of egg sinker is normally determined by the size of tackle used, drift, and the depth of water fish. In 50 feet of water I normally use a 20 to 25 pound main line set up with a ½ to 1 ounce egg sinker and then I tie on a 1/0 to 2/0 thin tinned circle hook. The best bait is going to be cut squid, shrimp, or fish. I like using a small piece of squid. Why? It stays on the hook longer giving you a better chance of a more solid hook up!
This nice cobia could resist the old drop through rig!
How do I fish this rig? It’s so simple, so do this: Either drop directly or cast out away from the boat. Let your sinker drop to the bottom and leave the bale open. (Also make sure you have a light drag set) If you are drifting… let your line out allowing the sinker to stay on the bottom. What will be happening? The sinker will stay on the bottom, but your bait will not. Your bait will be carried in the current, which allows for more bottom coverage! What’s good about that? More bottom coverage means more bite opportunities! When you get a hit, let the fish take the bait, don’t set the hook, and then lock you bale. Once you do this your light drag will let the fish run off allowing the circle hook to do its job. Once hooked then you can re-set you drag meaning tighten it up a bit! It works every time all of the time! Actually it is fish catching magic!
I told you that all fish love the drop through rig! Even those that work the upper water column! What does this mean? The egg sinker anchors it on the bottom and the current takes the bait up and around.
While inshore fishing with Captain Kathy Brown of Miss Judy Charters Heather Castro San Antonio, Texas caught this impressive summer trout also known as a weak fish! Please know that the bag limit inshore or offshore is one per person. These fish have to be at least 13 inches tail length to keep! And as you see you can only keep one! So therefore choose wisely! On this day while bottom fishing we got the opportunity to really pick the biggest trout to keep! There was lots of school of fish all over the artificial reef. Here’s what I think know about this fish: Firstly, you can find them schooling over any sort of structure at the artificial reefs. Once you locate them with your fish finder and know what they look like on the screen it is very easy to find more. Why? These fish seem to always be on the move, follow those fish that are hooked up, and love to make way all of the time. So when you see what you think is a school of fish in the upper water column you just might have found yourself a suspended school of summer trout aka weak fish!
While artificial reef fishing with Captain Kathy Brown of Miss Judy Charters Parker Watkins visiting from Dalton, Georgia caught this nice pair of black sea bass.
“Little Miss Judy’s’ Believe It or Not!”
Old Time Navigation My Daddy’s Way
Back in the real old days during the wooden boat era there wasn’t much electronics on the old dash. This me (Captain Judy age 19) at the helm of my 31 foot wooden hull boat, which was my brought under some usual circumstances! According to the boat tale told this wooden beauty was to be sold and the proceeds were to be divided among x-wife and husband. At the time of the sell I can’t say how much the boat was most likely worth! However, I can say without a doubt that my father would have not brought it if it was not a big time deal. The wooden Chris Craft was in great shape and I guess you could say it was in a work in progress kind of mode. All the mechanical and hull stuff was in great condition. It just needed a little paint, which was easy enough! Daddy later told me that he paid less than a
$1,000.00 for this boat!
See the compass mounted to the right of my dash? Well, when we purchased it, instruction stated that we were supposed to set it. To set it, according to us locals we were supposed to line up the stern of our boat with the range marker off Tybee with the Range marker in Calibogue Sound, South Carolina. To get our compass’s correct-ness we could never figure how to do this! So therefore, the compass was taken out of the box, without further a-due, it was fastened to the dash! I can remember adding or deducting as much as 30 degrees to correct our course to the Old Black Fish Banks! On an officially set compass heading out from the Black sea buoy can off Tybee we took a heading of 90 degrees for one hour. After 45 minutes into this trip’s heading we started looking hard for the black/white buoy that marked the black fish banks. For our return heading it would be around 270 degrees and after a few miles we would certainly see the big black/white Tybee Light House! Now if the newly installed compass was not set we would ride behind some one that supposedly had one and set it while following said vessel.
Old Time Navigation My Daddy’s Way
Back in the real old day long before Loran we had to navigate the old way, which was anyway you could to get back to shore. My father had his standards on getting us back to shore. Some of them were simple. The most important one for this time era was to drop out a buoy as soon as you got where you thought you were going. Please re-read that last sentence of “where you thought you were going!” He also drilled in my head that is was important to watch the compass and try to keep the boat on as straight of a course as possible. He suggested to always keeping in mind the direction in which the wind was blowing. In other words was it changing directions or just holding. As a child I figured out quickly that the waves went with pretty much in the same direction as the wind. However, that’s not always true. Sometimes all is completely different in this respect, but when you don’t know in the first place it really doesn’t seem to matter.
Once I arrived to what was perceived as the designated fishing spot I was to throw the old sacred buoy out. This would become the center of my fishing universe. I fished around and circled this area until it was time to go home. During this time era, which fell in the late sixties and early seventies “Loran A” was invented. Loran stands for “LOng RAnge Navigation.” To be honest I especially during this time had absolute no idea how it worked much less if it did. My father had one of the first lorans installed in his charter boat for this area. I had the second, which he also brought as a present for me. In fact I still have one of those old loran that he purchased from Maricom Electronics in Thunderbolt. But that’s another story. The bottom line to the story is short, simple, and to the point. Even with all the electronics onboard I had certain instructions from my father. To this day I remember exactly what he told me to do. My father told me that even after using the newly installed navigation “Loran” that I was to never, not for one minute to forget that it was a machine and it might not work. So therefore I was to use it as a navigational aid only! With all that being said, his main suggestion was then to just head home the old way! As you can see I am still doing that!
Thanks for reading! Captain Judy
Here I sit at my current Miss Judy Too helm! It is loaded with all the right electronic for proper navigation! (Now all you have to do is learn how to use them!) It has GPS, Radar, Sonar, weather XM, marine radios, AIS, auto pilot, etc, and direct communication with Mars! (If they ever do call I will be ready!)