Travel - Hilton Head, SC

Everywhere a fish, fish …

Of all the outright fishing forays – Belize, Key West, Tampa – none set the record like Hilton Head. No matter what water I was fishing, I caught something. That is, every fishing day, I had to dig a hook out of something unhappy.

The first trip was with Outside Hilton Head in a kayak – a first in itself. Not only did I catch the first redfish (of three) I caught the biggest fish– a three-foot bonnethead shark (Think hammerhead that has had its hammer cut off badly with dull shears.)

The simplest trips of all, casting into the sea from the beach, resulted in at minimum foot-long dogfish, and once, a very small cobia.

Oddly the least successful was a party boat, which was way over-crowded with 40-50 people. Have had more sitting room in a bus. The other discouraging part is, sure, the captain knows where the fish are, the wreck/artificial reef/structure is, but so does everyone else. It got quite crowded at the marker, to the extent that my boat was the worst positioned of the lot. We seemed to catch the typical table scraps [panfish if it were fresh water, but most species had to be a minimum of 12” for keepers.] I caught one spade fish, and three very small sea bass. As for fight, imagine 8-oz of lead weight sinkers and catching a 6-oz fish. Not a lot of play.

The most interesting part of the party boat was my experiment. I rigged a circle hook and a piece of artificial stinkbait to my rig. Besides it costing me way too many tangles, the artificial was out-catching the cut squid and shrimp by 2:1.[See Thoughts – It Works!] I also learned that a Palomar knot will not hold on 50lb test monofilament. The crew seemed to prefer the clinch – without improvement.

And that is what I used on the beach: the artificial squid. Absolutely fascinating. Technology rules!