South Carolina Redfish: Running Away

Noah and I had heard quite a bit about the incredible fishing for redfish and speckled trout in South Carolina and had decided to try fishing the area around Hilton Head Island for a couple days. Getting there late in the evening the same day we'd cast at our last tarpon of the Florida trip we drove around scoping spots in an area neither of us had ever been, getting an idea of what we might be in for.

The water we'd be fishing looked incredible. The famous Lowcountry grass flats extended for miles and I imagined paddling slowly down them looking for tailing reds. We fell asleep in a rest stop with, as it would turn out, far more confidence in ourselves than we deserved to have.
We rose early and drove to a launch and were on the water as the sun rose.

There was a problem evident though as we fished. There wasn't much evidence of predatory fish. The was some very small bait, and we spooked some croakers out of the shallows, but we saw no evidence of trout, reds, black drum, or bluefish. We chalked it up to the spot and the tide and moved. 

Our move proved no more fruitful. With the tide bottoming out, we cruised back different sloughs hoping to see some reds. There was more life, but still not as much as we'd hoped to see. Mostly, there were stingrays... tons and tons of stingrays. More stingrays than I'd ever seen. Back one slough we did see redfish, or, more precisely, I saw two redfish. One was tailing briefly against the bank, the other one, a big bull, spooked. And that was it actually; those were the only two redfish we saw in South Carolina. I ended up catching a stingray up that slough, only my third ever but definitely the same species. But that was all that staved off the skunk.

With the sun now very high and the tide low but rising, we opted to bide our time and wait for the flood tide. We went to a park and wandered around a bit to see what sort of interesting things we could find in this unfamiliar territory. It was quite hot and the sun was harsh, so not much was out and active. After a bit Noah went back to the van to do some research, while I stayed out to try to find some snakes. I didn't, but I did find myself a new frog species, a Cope's gray treefrog.

Hyla chrysoscelis

When I got back Noah relayed what he'd learned. Basically, we were completely wrong about where fish would be and when, and with the tools at our disposal it was highly unlikely that we'd catch even one redfish. It as too early for flood tide tailers in the grass. There weren't good trout reports either. We had totally dropped the ball on researching what we were getting ourselves into and it looked very likely that we'd not be catching any of the species we'd wanted.
So we ran.
We ran away from South Carolina with our tails between our legs.
Our sights now were set on very different fish in Virginia.
But, South Carolina... we'll be back. Don't think you've beaten us just yet.

Until next time,

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

And stay safe and healthy.

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