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Myrtle Beach Fishing

Myrtle Beach Fishing Information

My name is Brandon Sauls, a USC Graduate, and one of my favorite pastimes is inshore fishing in the North Myrtle Beach, SC area covering Little River, SC to Ocean Isle Beach, NC. Along the Little River Jetties, nearby creeks and Intracoastal Waterway you will find plenty of great flounder, trout and spottail bass fishing. No matter what time of the year you will have an opportunity to run across at least one of these species if you are a dedicated fishermen or have hired an experienced local guide. Capt. Mark Dickson of Shallow Minded Inshore Charters, a Myrtle Beach Fishing guide, has been inshore fishing in Little River area for years. Captain Mark Dickson is a lifelong resident of North Myrtle Beach and a full time guide who takes pride in being one of the best at what he can do - Catch Fish!

My goal is to update this fishing report page through the year to provide you with information and knowledge so when you do plan on coming fishing or chartering a local guide you will know what to expect.

Request Information from Capt. Brandon Sauls
910-443-1786

Are you looking for a Beaufort Inshore Fishing Report. Check out Capt. Austin Bell's Fishing Report. Long Shot Charters offers Myrtle Beach Fishing Charters while you are vacationing!

2017 Fishing Season

Myrtle Beach Spade Fishing - 08/30/08
I was not able to pull off another drum trip to Cedar Island like I really wanted to, but I attempted to make the best out of it right here fishing our nearshore waters off of Myrtle Beach. Capt. Mark Staci and I struck out early Saturday morning to seek out flounder on the nearshore wrecks. Based off of last year's report it was a given we would have a good day of hunting down those flatties! We caught all the mullet and menhaden we needed between the Ocean Isle Beach Bridge and the Sunset Beach Bridge. We ran out of Tubb's Inlet and the ocean was flat calm. We made a few stops dropping minnows down without gettting a single flounder bite. After 3 hours of riding around in the ocean we decided to head offshore to approximately 50 feet of water. We scooped up jelly balls around the jetties before heading out that morning. It was not long after getting setup on the anchor that the Spade Fish began to show. Check out the video and photos below. The spade fish would come up on the jelly balls by the dozens, all you had to do was flip your line out and hang on. They are one heck of a battle on light tackle.

Myrtle Beach Spade Fishing Video Clip I
Myrtle Beach Spade Fishing Video Clip II
Myrtle Beach Spade Fishing Video Clip III

Click fish photo for details.

Pamlico Sound Drum Fishing - 08/17/08
It is that time of the year again when the large drum fishing kicks off in the Pamlico Sound. I had Grady Gordon and Brian Perry join me on the journey to Cedar Island. We struck out Friday around noon and headed up to Harker's Island to catch menhaden and do a little flounder and speckled trout fishing beforehand. We caught all the pogies we needed and headed on up to Cedar Island. We checked into the world famous 5 star resort, Driftwood Inn, and set off into the Pamlico Sound. We ran approximately 5 miles to Western and fished in 14 feet of water. The Bone Crusher was sitting on the "hot spot" by 5:30pm. The tide started falling around 7:30pm and the moon rise up over the ocean and from that point on for the next two hours it was on. I will share two numbers with you - one is good and one is bad. The bad number is that we were 50% on our hookup / catch ratio - the good number is that we actually boated 9 fish. We had double header 30 pounders and 4 fish that would go just over the 40+ lb mark, the remainder were 25+ pound drum.

The drum bite should be good for the next 4 weeks or so. I plan on heading back up there Labor Day weekend. Check back for that report.

Pamlico Sound Drum Fishing Video Clip I
Pamlico Sound Drum Fishing Video Clip II

Click fish photo for details.

Ocean Isle Beach Spade Fishing - 08/09/08
What have I been thinking all these years NOT fishing for Spade Fish! You want to talk about something fun that will give you one heck of a tug on your line.... grab a few Jelly Balls and start chumming them up. This morning I started off early - mullet where thick in the waterway and a few menhaded were in the natural canals. I filled my bait tanks and headed off to AR 460 (3 Mile Box Cars). I spent an hour or so there jigging around for flounder and looking for spade fish, they never showed. I made a move onto the west down to the Jim Caudle and hit a few live bottom areas - after an hour of looking around I found them. I was actually flounder fishing at the time and I stared down into the water and there they were - must have been 50+. I chopped up a few Jelly Balls and tossed them over the side and within seconds I was hooked up. Around and around the boat I went fighting these fish on light spinning tackle! I had to head back early today, but I promise you I know what I will be doing tomorrow and next weekend!! SPADE FISHING! See the photos below and the one video clip.

Spade Fish Video Clip
Click fish photo for details.

Monster Bull Drum - 07/27/08
I am alive - I see that is has been darn near a month and I have not made a post. Seems like I have been out of town a good bit and when I have gone fishing I was not able to fish that long. Excuses, excuses!! I will say that I had a pretty good day on the water yesterday given the ole hot dog days of July! I headed out around 2pm yesterday, the plan was to catch big baits and head offshore to the nearshore wrecks to try for a flounder. I was able to capture a net full of pogies in the canals at Ocean Isle Beach. I came up on my first stop where I saw Capt. Larry Spainhour. We stuck it out for an hour before we ever caught a flounder. Larry managed to boat the first one and within 10 minutes of that I hooked into one of the largest red drum I have caught in these waters. The fish was over 40 inches and weighed 30+ pounds. It put one one heck of a fight that lasted close to 15 minutes. I was unsure what the species was when I hooked him - I hate I fought the fish that long. Luckily Larry was there because my battery was dead in my camera (see the flounder below Larry brought to the boat.). I hung around for another hour where I managed to put 6 flounder on board. No monsters, but nice fish for the frying pan!

Click fish photo for details.

Double Header Flound and Spottails - 06/28/08
Woke up Saturday morning with plans to bounce around the nearshore wrecks, but by the time I got to the boat the wind was kicking out of the Southwest. I decided to stay inshore and fish Shallotte and Tubbs Inlets. I caught all the mullet and peanut pogies in the Ocean Isle Beach canals that I needed, but they were on the small side. Seems like bait was a little larger this time last year. I headed off to Shallotte Inlet where I managed to bag one keeper flounder. I stayed around for a while, but the tide was really low and just about slack. I decided to burn some time by heading to Tubbs Inlet to catch Tiger Minnows and wait for the tide to start rising.

I made a few stops in Tubbs and around the Sunset Beach bridge - I thought the fishign was going to be on fire, my first stop produced a double header spottail bass and flounder!! I hung around this location for a little longer where I managed to boat one more flounder and redfish. It was not long before I received a call from Charles Fox aboard Team McKee - he and his dad had just bailed over a flatfish right at the 5 pound mark. I ran over to where they were fishing and caught 2 flounder within about 10 minutes before I received a call from the baby sitter! Well, there went my flounder bite - I had to leave for an hour or so to deliver babyseats out of my truck!! Darn it - I will remember this next time.

I came back out that afternoon and fished the top of the rising tide in Tubbs where I picked up a few more flounder. Overall, I had 3 redfish and 7 flounder. Not a bad day, but none of my fish were big. I'm looking forward to the bait getting a little larger over the upcoming weeks. Bigger bait = bigger fish!

Double Header Flounder and Trout - Sunset Beach

Curt and Beck Rogers with Flounders caught in Tubbs Inlet

Click fish photo for details.

Big Rock 2008 / Floundering In Tubbs Inlet, NC - 06/15/08
I was given the opportunity to fish the Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament aboard the Dawg Due (60' Viking Sportfish) this past week. I headed up to Moorhead on Thursday and had a blast fishing with a few buddies of mine - Capt. Grady Chandler, Capt. Thomas Morrison and Curt Rogers. We did not have any shots at Blue Marlins, but we were in the right place. The Dawg Due is a 60' Viking Sportfish that can cruise in the mid-upper 30 knot range. We pulled out of Big Rock at 3:00pm, ran 42 miles and was snugged away and washing the boat at the Beaufort City Docks within 1 hour and 20 minutes. This boat was awesome!

Grady and the crewed headed back to Charleston while Curt Rogers and I headed back to Ocean Isle Beach. We had a few hours left in the afternoon to fish and we got on a great flounder bite. We caugh over 10 fish within 30-45 minutes and kept three. Check out the photo of Curt and Beck holding up their catch.

Click fish photo for details.

Ocean Isle Beach Floudering and Trouting - 05/26/08
What a great day to be on the water! Whitney and I had the pleasure of getting on the water today and leave our girls behind with the babysitter! Whitney has been wanting to go fishing for sometime to see what all this trout mania is I have been talking about. To make a long story short we arrived at the Sunset Beach Bridge this morning before all the boat traffic flared up. Within 45 minutes Whitney and I boated 7 - 8 nice speckled trout. The largest was right at 3 pounds. Around 11am or so the boat traffic picked up so we headed off to Tubbs Inlet. There we came across Team McKee, which consist of Capt. Charles Fox III and Capt. Charles Fox Jr., we pulled up on them to see how they had been doing. They reported nice flounder being caught and pulled one out there box that weighed somewhere in the seven pound range. They had a few other fish in the 20" class. Whitney and I hung around and managed to land two flounder ourselves before heading back to the dock.

I received a few other reports today and from what it sounds like the inshore action is just really getting kicked off around Ocean Isle Beach.

Brandon Sauls at Sunset Beach Bridge with a Nice Speckled Trout

Whitney Sauls at Sunset Beach Bridge with a Nice Speckled Trout

Whitney Sauls at Sunset Beach Bridge with another Nice Speckled Trout

Click fish photo for details.

Dixie Chicken Tournament - 2nd Place Overall - 05/24/08
Team Bone Crusher was looking to take a Tripeat this year at the 2008 Dixie Chicken Funament, but we were beat out by 0.06 lbs. That is 6 hundreths of one pound! Scott Quaintance and Nesbit Noble beat Capt. Mark Staci and I out by a very small margin. A win is a win and I don't want to take nothing from that crew, but I do need to tell you that there was quite a bit of skeeming and scamming going on over this past week by none other then this team along with Capt. Brian Aycock, Capt. Mark Dickson, Capt. Kyle Hughes, the Mayor of Ocean Isle Beach and who knows who else. I arrived at my boat this morning to see an entire case of Chiquita Bananas stuffed in every rod hole, locker, port hole, bilge hole, console storage hole and to top it off I think they packed banana mush in my livewell pickup. For those of you that don't know a banana on a boat has been known to bring extreme back luck!! See the photos below!

Quick note on the fishing! It rained and blew from the East - Northeast all day today. We managed to muster up a 4.28lb speckled trout, 2.06lb flounder, and a .50 lb spanish mackerel. Tough day of fishing, but we did manage to be the second spot first place champions!

Click fish photo for details.

Ocean Isle Beach Inshore Slam - 05/10/08
Redfish, Speckled Trout, Flounder, Black Drum, Bluefish!! They are all snapping! Saturday morning I set out on a mission to hunt down redfish and flounder. I was going to leave the trout alone for a day - I didn't want to press my luck with another tournament right around the corner. I started off fishing around the Sunset Beach Bridge with no luck, I moved over into Tubb's Inlet and the water looked it was fresh out the bottom of a toilet bowl. The wind blew really hard on Friday and had everything turned up. I managed to get my hands on a few blue crabs so I headed out in search of a red drum. Fishing along the docks in the ICW I managed to go three for five on red fish and black drum. The bite slowed so I headed down to the Little River Cross Roads area and started floating shrimp. Within an hour or so I picked up five speckled trout and a keeper flounder. The tide was falling now so I stopped at the Sunset Beach Bridge where I picked up two more trout. Check out my bent jig head hook. Another redfish gets away!

All in all it was a pretty good day. It seemed that the fish bit a litle better on the falling tide. Water temp is around the 74 degree mark.

Redfish caught around Ocean Isle Beach ICW Docks

Click fish photo for details.

1st Place Trout Division - Capt. Kyle's Spring Inshore Classic - 05/03/08
Team Bonecrusher takes 1st Place in the Trout Division of Capt. Kyle's tournament with a 8.30lb Speckled Trout! This weekend I was joined by William Southard out of Charleston, SC to fish this tournament with me. We started earlier Saturday morning at the Sunset Beach Bridge in hopes of finding a keeper flounder first and then we would work on the trout. We fished for close to two hours at the bridge and never came up with a flatty! The tide turned and we figure it was time to head to the Little River Jetties to find a speckled trout. We fished for two more hours and only caught two small trout (2.0 and 3.5 lb trout). We knew we had to try to catch a solid 4+ pound fish to possibly make the leader board. We stuck it out for an additional thirty minutes and it turned on. My cork went under and I thought I had a nice fish, but it turned out to be a 20+ inch red drum. I immediately cast right back out, only to see my cork go down again. I said to William, "it looks like we are in the middle of a redfish bite". Well, this "redfish" turned into a 8.30 pound speckled trout. This is the largest I have ever caught - I was shaking so bad I could barely get the hook out of her mouth. (This 8.30 pound fish trumps the 7.95 I weighed in at the Ocean Isle Fishing Center Rodeo just two weeks ago.) With this "sow" of a trout safely on board we struck out flounder fishing for the remainder of the afternoon. I'm embarrassed to say, but we fished for 4 hours and only landed one undersized flounder. What a disappointment - all we needed was one keep flounder to have won the tournament outright. Flounder fishing has not really turned out like it has down in Cherry Grove.

William and I may have been a little disappointed that we did not catch a keeper flounder, but we ecstatic about this mammoth speckled we landed!

Brandon Sauls and William Southard with a 8.30 Speckled Trout

Click fish photo for details.

1st Place Overall - Tripp and Austin’s 1st Annual Backwater Battle - 04/26/08
This was the first Annual Tripp and Austin’s 1st Annual Backwater Battle held out of Holden Beach Marina and I decided to sit the Bonecrusher on the sidelines and join forces with two inshore heavy weights, Capt. Mark Dickson and Capt. Mark Staci! We started out Friday catching Tiger Minnows in Tubb's Inlet and putting our game plan together. We decided we would start at the Little River Jetties first thing and see if we could boat a 4+ lb speckled trout and if we did we would hit some of our traditional spring time flounder hot spots. We arrived at the Jetties right at 6am and fished in one spot for two hours straight, no trout, just redfish and sheepshead. We made a few moves and it was not long until we boated a 5.7 pound, 4.5 pound, and a 3 pound speckled trout. We hated to leave a bite, but we wanted to stick to our game plan. We had what we thought was a decent fish - if we could find a flatfish we would have a good chance at winning this tournament.

Now we are off in search of a flounder, within 10 minutes of being at our first stop we managed to catch a flounder that was 13 and 15/16 of an inch, man it was close to being a keeper but we didn't want to take any chances. For the next 3 - 4 hours we ran up and down the waterway in search of a keeper flounder. At the last location we stopped Mark Staci managed to hook and land one right at the 17 inch mark. With both species being in the box we felt really good now. We heard reports of some boats having flounder and some having trout, but no one had both species.

We arrived at the scales with plenty of time to spare - Mark Dickson of Shallow Minded Inshore Charters runs a Triton 240 LTS powered by a Yamaha 350 Four Stroke. This boat is not fast, it is really fast!! I looked down and we were running in the mid fifties, boat fully loaded!!

We weighed the trout and flounder at the weighin and the trout went 5.7 lbs and the flounder went 1.65 lbs this 7.35 lb aggragate put us into the lead! We managed to pull off:

1st Place Overall

1st Place TWT Aggregate

1st Place TWT Trout

2nd Place TWT Flounder

All in all it was a great day of inshore fishing with Mark and Mark - we had fun and we went home with a check in our pocket! Austin and Tripp - we are looking forward to next year's event!

5.7 lb Speckled Trout and 1.65 lb Flounder

Click fish photo for details.

Speckled Trout Spring Bite is Unbelievable - 04/19/08
Four Months and 19 days into 2008 we finally had a weekend where it was not raining or blowing the shortening out of the biscuits! I am supposed to be in Charleston, SC right now attending a wedding with my wife, BUT who could pass up a weekend like this with the weather as pretty as it was and the spring speckled trout bite right in our back yard. Capt. Kyle Hughes and I set out Friday morning to test our skills for the upcoming inshore tournament season. Just as Sig and Edgar Hansen of the FV Northwestern (Deadliest Catch) do each season for good luck, our first cast we lit our corks on fire and cast them out hoping that is brings us good luck like it does for those guys. Within minutes we had a double header on - Capt. Kyle bailed over a 5.3lb trout and I had one right at the 4.0lb mark. Not bad for our official first run of the season. We did not find another trout for the remainder of the day, but we did manage to land 6 or so 18" redfish.

NOW FOR THE BIG STORY! I headed back out Saturday morning by myself to prove that I could top Capt. Kyle's 5.3 pounder that was now leading the OIFC Fishing Rodeo. I managed to work though 4 - 5 small trout at the Sunset Beach Bridge before I decided to head off to the land of the giant specks. With in minutes of getting my anchor set I was hooked into one "smoker trout" - she would pull line and I would loose line - I would gain line and she take more back. This went on for five plus minutes before I ever saw the fish, but let me tell you when I did see the fish my heart about dropped out the bottom of the boat. I was finally able to net her over the side and when I heard the thud on the deck I knew it was a nice fish. I called Capt. Kyle and told him I had one that may go six plus pounds. I ran to the Ocean Isle Fishing Center and to my surprise the fish weighed more then I thought. 7.95 lbs!! Now that is a speckled trout. I was able to release her healthy and alive, hopefully I will be able to find her or her mother at Tripp and Austin's 1st Annual Backwater Battle April 25 - 26, 2008 at Holden Beach Marina next weekend.

Spring time "monster trout" fishing is now on for the next few weeks! Don't waste anytime grab your pole and go get one!

Click fish photo for details.

Early 2008 Report - 2/24/08
Yes, I am alive. These dark cold days have kept me at bay, but I have been out and about on the warmer days catching trout, reds and killing a few ducks. Here is a quick recap. Over New Year's Eve I was down at Edisto Beach, SC where I had an opportunity to fish in a saltwater pond. Even in all this cold weather there were still pogies to be found in the warm waters of this pond. Flounder was the catch of the day with my largest one being right at 4.5 pounds. In between Edisto Beach, SC and Ocean Isle Beach, NC I managed to do little fishing with my fellow comrade William Southard where we managed to catch a few reds and trout in the Isle of Palms / Bulls Bay waters. After making my way on North back to Ocean Isle Beach I teamed up with Capt. Mark Dickson of Shallow Minded Inshore Charters from Myrtle Beach, SC and Mark Staci of Ocean Isle Beach. Together we fished the shallow waters around Calabash and Little River where we managed to catch 12+ rat spottails in just a matter of an hour or so. As I continued my travels on northward, Capt. Kyle Hughes and I teamed up aboard the Bone Crusher and steamed up to Sneeds Ferry. We expected to load the boat as good as the reports have been from that way, but after a full day of casting artificial we were able to hook into 6 trout (2 - 3.5 lbs) and one flounder. That is the first flounder I have ever scene in February. My final stop was a duck hunting trip over on Ocracoke Island with 3 of my best friends. We hunted three days and killed Widgeon, Pintails, and a few divers. See the photo below of the double header pintail shooting I was able to pull off.

Looking forward to the weather warming and getting back to my daily routine of fishing!

Click fish photo for details.

2007 Fishing Season

Speckled Trout Bite is ON!! - 12/9/07
After yesterday's bite, I had to head out back out for another day of it. Today I caught over 20 trout and 6 redfish from Lockwood to the Shallotte River area. The largest trout was 4.8 lbs and I had a handful of upper 3 lb fish. The bite was a little slow to get started, but from 9:30 - 10:30am is was one. There for a while every drift produced a bite.

Click fish photo for details.

Under Like Thunder - 12/8/07
I back - I'm alive. The month of November is my favorite time of year to be outdoors and darn if I'm not hit with a wedding anniversary, my twin's birthday, my wife's birtday and Thanksgiving all in a thirty day period. Not much time for fish and hunting I hate to say. It is now December and I'm back on the fishing circuit. Could not be a better time to be on the water - Capt. Brian Aycock and I headed out this morning for a day of speckled trout fishing. With fishing being so good lately we decided to do a little prospecting. We dock hopped all up and down the ICW with live shrimp that Brian had caught early this week. By the end of the day we captured over 20 speckled trout, redfish, and black drum. See the photos below of the three largest specks we caught. They weighed 5.8, 4.2 and 3.9 - we culled through quite a few 3+ pounders. All in all it was a great day on the water!

See the photos below.

Click photo for details.

Lafitte, LA Fishing Report - 10/7/07
Before I start to tell this story - I will go ahead and acknowledge that there is no way that you will believe it, but that is ok. Remember Louisiana is the "Sportsman Paradise". I booked a speckled trout - red fish full day charter with Griffin Fishing Charters and climbed aboard with Capt. Keith. We made a 10 minute run to Lake Salvador. As we made our way down the bank of the lake Capt. Keith had me looking for birds working bait. Within minutes of looking for birds we found them working on mullet and shrimp on the lee side of Lake. We eased our way up to the shallows and fished between a grass flat and cypress tree line. Within minutes the bite was on - we fishing artificials and top water the entire morning. From 7:00am until 12:00pm we were 4 for 7 on reds and we caught over 200 speckled trout. This was what I was referring to earlier. I don't expect you to beleive me no way you see it. That is ok because I would have never believed it until I actually experienced it. There was never more then a 2-3 minute lull in action. If I went more then three cast without a bite I thought the fishing was getting bad. My boat was not the only one who deck loaded the drum and speckles.

See the photos below.

Click photo for details.

Myrtle Beach Fishing Report - Red Drum Alert - Red Drum Alert - 10/7/07
I started off fishing Friday morning at the Little River Jetties. I was looking into getting in on some of the sheepshead action that has been going on down that way. I had the right bait and was anchored just like I wanted to be, but had no luck. I know they are there I just have to figure it out. After 30 minutes of doing this, I switched off and drifted the inlet for redfish, but all I got were cutoffs from bluefish. Boy the bluefish are thick!! I did manage to catch one nice flounder around Tubbs Inlet. See the photo below of Beck Rogers holding the fish up!

Saturday morning came and the wind was still blowing East - Northeast. I started off fishing in the Shallotte Inlet area and managed to catch one puppy drum. I hung around here for a while until the tide was dead low. Did not seem like too much was going on. I headed out of the Shallotte Inlet and punched in the Jim Caudle reef. Here I managed to catch a few flounders and grey trout. Right on top of the structure the "mother-in-laws" (toad fish) were thick. Seems as if the fish were holding on the upwind side of the structure. I came back into the Little River Jetties around 1:30, the wind shifted to a more East - Southeast direction, and drifted the incoming tide for drum. No luck - the blues were so thick I could not get a bait down. I ran off to the Calabash River, where I managed to catch a few small speckled trout. 13 - 15 inches.

Sunday I had planned not to go fishing and to work around the house. Well, this all changed when Capt. Larry Spainhour called at 2:45pm with a RED DRUM alert. He reported that he had caught two reds back to back and another boat was hooked up. I looked at my wife and simply stated - I have to go to the jetties and I will return in two hours. I had the throttle to the pins all the way down to the jetties. Upon arriving, I looked over at Larry and he was hooked up. I knew this report was dead on. I made a drift and BAM two rods doubled over. I managed to get one to the boat - the other got away. This bite was red hot from the time I arrived at 3:15 until about 4:15 or so. I hauled a total of five over the gunnels during this time period and Capt. Larry ended up with 8 reds with the largest going right at 43 inches. Now, that is a big fish. Hopefully, this bite will continue for the next week or two. This bite ocurrs each year around this time of the year. It happened a little later this year, I believe because the water temp has been much higher compared to last year until recently.

All fish were tagged and released!
See the photos below.

Click photo for details.

Team Bone Crusher places 3rd in the Southport Wildlife Bait and Tackle Shop Flounder Tournament - 09/29/07
A flounder tournament was held at the Southport Wildlife Bait and Tackle shop benefitting Brandon Mathews this past weekend. I decided to team up with Capt. Ricky Bishop and give it a run for my money. We pre-fished the Cape Fear on Friday from the Southport Waterfront to Snows Cut and did not get a single flounder bite. We thought about it a while and decided to head down to the Little River Jetties, the flounder fishing around Southport has been a little slow overall. The wind was going to blow 25+ out of the northeast and this would provide us some shelter out of the winds. We fished most of the day around the jetties and ended up catching six flounder and one 40 inch red drum. We were fishing with both pogies and 5-6 inch mullets. Ricky and I made a few stops on the way back to Southport, but most of our flounder holes were dried up. Team Bone Crusher weighed a 5.54 lb flounder that put us in 3rd place out of 43 boats. We did not quite win it like we did the previous weekend, but I will take 3rd place any day!!

See the photos below.

Click photo for details.

Team Bone Crushes takes 1st Place in the inshore division of the North Carolina's Deep Water / Shallow Water Fishing Rodeo - 09/23/07
I decided late last week that I was going to fish The North Carolina's Deep Water / Shallow Water Fishing Rodeo held out of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center. The weather has been a little back and forth for the past week or so from strong NE winds to a Tropical Storm looming over us. Either way long as there were no lighting bolts flying around I was going to fish. I was planning on fishing by myself until I received a call from Capt. Kyle Hughes - he was available to fish on Wednesday and that was the day of my birthday - I could thing of any thing better to be doing then fishing an inshore fishing tournament.

Day 1 - Wednesday, September 19th - Kyle and I decided that we would focus on different species over the two day period. Day 1 we were going to focus on catching trout and redfish and on Day 2 we would focus on the flounder. We caught a few and I mean a few shrimp in the Eastern Channel and mullet on Wednesday morning. We fishing all the trout spots >> Sunset Beach Bridge, Little River Jetties, etc.. We manage to come up with a little ole 1.55lb trout - not much of a trout, but it was a trout. It was not long until we ran out of shrimp so we shifted out focus to red fishing! We stopped and fished a few spots along the ICW and managed to come across a redfish in the 4-5 lb range. Good fish, but we knew we needed a larger one. We headed off to the Shallotte Inlet were we managed to catch a 2.20 lbs flounder. At this point we were pretty excited, we had all three species and they were all alive. (Keeping your fish alive in this tournament is critical - you receive an additional 1 lb for each species that is released alive.) We had a little more time on our hands so we made one more stop to attempt to upsize our spottail. This last stop turned out to be quite fruitful. We landed a drum at 4:45pm that was 26 7/8 inches - this fish was at the top of the slot and went right at 9.15 lbs. We ran to the weigh in and day one we were leading the tournament by just over 3 pounds.

Day 2 - Saturday, September 22nd - Today Capt. Kyle's father, Nathaniel Hu

Little River Red Drum Bite is On!! - 10/02/2010
Little River Red Drum Bite is On!! - 10/02/2010
Wowa - what a great two days of fishing at the Little River Jetties! As expected, the monster red drum showed up right here at the beginning of October just as they did last year. Capt. Mark Staci joined me on Saturday to fishing the rising tide. We arrived at the Jetties to see Capt. Kyle Hughes and Capt. Grady Gordon doubled down catching two at a time. I was excited to see this knowing that we had arrived and the fish were still biting. From 11:30am until 4:00pm - Mark and I managed to captured 18+ redfish ranging from 15 lbs to right at 30 lbs! These fish put up one heck of a fight and there is nothing like it.

I called Nesbit Noble and informed him on the bite and he joined me on Sunday at the Jetties - the bite was nothing like it was on Saturday, but there was still a good time had. We managed to boat three fish - the larges being 32 - 33lbs on the boga!

Man - I think I may play a little hooky this week. It will be hard to stay in the office knowing those big ole gals are there ready to be sore mouthed!!

Who wants to come fishing with me? It is on!!

PS - check out the last photo of my mom with a nice keep flounder caught right in my backyard in Beaufort, SC! It runs deep in the blood!

Click photo for details.

Annual Pamilico Sound Redfish Trip - 08/14/2010
The time arrived for us to head up to Cedar Island, NC in search of the monster red drum that show up this time of year in the Pamlico Sound. We headed out of town early Friday morning towing the BoneCrusher up along with Brian Aycock on the Hail Yea and Scott Quaintance on his 24 Yellowfin, Casual Water.

We arrived at Harkers Island around 1pm and we set out to find menhaden around an area they call the Middle Ground. It was a little tough catching them, but it was no long we had our coolers full and were checking in at the Driftwood Motel.

By 6:30 Friday afternoon we were all anchored a few miles to the west of the Cedar Island Ferry Docks. The technique for fishing these drum is not complicated:
- Block of chum over the side
- Fresh Cut Menhaden or Mullet on a bottom rig
- Cold Beer in cooler
- Hang on and wait for you pole to bend

It was a little slow both nights - the wind was honking a good 18+knots from the East and it made it rough as a cob. We managed to catch 3 and the Hail Yea boated 2 fish. We stayed out to midnight and made the rough run back home.

Saturday was a different story - mine and Scott's team headed down to Atlantic, NC and there we caught peanut pogies, mullet and tiger minnows and we put a whooping on the flounder at Drum Inlet. We managed to catch 22 flounder and Scott had 41+ flounder. All fish were in the 12 - 15 inch range, but the quantity made it fun. The water was beautiful Bahama green and you could see the bottom in 12 feet of water.

Saturday Night we headed back out to the same area and all set back up. The sound was much calmer, as the winds had slowed to maybe 10 - 12 knots. We all fished long and hard and we were able to boat 2 more drum, largest 45 inches, Hail Yea hauled one over and Causal Water picked up 3 reds.

We had a great time - a lot of firecracker wars, water balloon battles, and better yet a few guys got "anchored" into their room. See the pics below and you will see.

Heading back up this coming weekend! Fishing should only be better with the Full Moon on its way.

Check back next week for the rest of the story!

Capt. BS

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Little River Jetties Trout Bite - 05/08/2010
The Little River Jetties Trout bite was on this Saturday morning. The conditions were a little windy, but everything else came together for us. I had one of my best friends from Charleston, William Southard, travel up and as usual he brings the wind along with him.

We set out Saturday morning around 7am and made a few stops in the nearby creeks of Ocean Isle Beach and managed to boat 6 redfish within 30 - 45 minutes. With the tide falling until 10:30am or so this gave us 2+ hours of good fishing at the jetties. We pulled up and anchored at the rocks and began drifting shrimp. Within a few minutes the bite was on - we managed to catch 15 - 18 speckled trout and two redfish in the 7 - 8lb range. The fish bit all the way up until the tide stopped falling.

We decided to head to Tubbs to do a little floundering as the tide started to rise. We saw a few fish boated, but we did not manage to get a bite. The wind really started to blow and turned up the water flowing into Tubbs. We headed out to the Shallotte River were we managed to catch a flounder to round out our day with an OCEAN ISLE BEACH SLAM!

Not a bad days fishing overall! The largest trout I weighed at the Ocean Isle Fishing center and it went 3.4lbs putting Team Bonecrusher 2nd in the OIFC Fishing Rodeo.

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Spring Time Ocean Isle Beach Trout and Drum - 04/18/2010
Just a quick update! The weather may have been blowing a little this weekend, but it did not keep the fish from biting today. I had one of my best friend's come to town, Chris Brownlee and two other comrades Harrison and Mitch Flannery.

We hopped in the boat around 1pm today to fish the falling tide from Ocean Isle to the Little Jetties and it paid off.

We managed to catch 12 - 15 drum and 3 speckled trout using live shrimp on a cork and mud minnows hooked to a fish finder rig.

The water temp is showing right at 68 degrees on my bottom machine and this means the fishing should only be getting better from here on out.

I'm a little upset - I'm leaving town to go fishing the keys this coming Friday and I'm going to be leaving a hot trout bite behind at the Jetties, I know!

By the way - there are two photos of my mom above. She is one heck of a fisherman herself. Me, my mom and dad managed to catch 5 drum and a dozen trout last weekend!

Catch 'em up!

Brandon

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Ocean Isle Beach Inshore Fishing - Dead of Winter - 03/07/2010
Well it took until March for me to make my first post for 2010. I have been like a bear hiding in my den. Busy with work on top of the cold and rainy weather we have experienced has just kept me inside for the past 6 weeks or so. Well - this ole bear is out of his cave as of this past Friday. Lookout inshore critters - the Bone Crusher is here to get ya!

I started looking at the weekend weather starting around Tuesday or so of last week and I started getting excited seeing all those sunny days on the Weather Channel's forecast. I knew it was going to be a good weekend for chasing reds in the shallow waters!

One of my great friends, Chris Brownlee, came into town on Friday and we got together with Capt. Mark Dickson for an afternoon of red fishing. We met up with Mark at the Calabash boat ramp and headed out. We fished aboard his Ranger Banshee and were able to run across spot that were no more then 5 - 8 inches of water. It was awesome seeing the bottom zipping by at 25 mph or better. We fished with Berkley Gulp New Penny Shrimp and crabs and managed to land 13 redfish with the largest going right 8lbs or so in less then 3 hours. It was a great afternoon and I was stoked to get back out and do it all over again.

Today (Sunday) - Mark Staci and I hoped on the boat together and we started off fishing the afternoon's falling tide around the Sunset Beach Bridge in hopes of finding a speckled trout. We gave that about 15 - 20 minutes without a single strike so we decided to go hunt down a few reds! We headed down the ICW and fished a few of the feeder creeks that the tide was dropping out of. It took us a little while to locate the fish and when we did it was on. In less then one hour we managed to boat ten redfish, one flounder and missed at least 4 - 5 more fish. It was a little chilly this afternoon, but it was WELL worth the trip.

I personally don't run a charter operation, but if you are looking for a Myrtle Beach Inshore Fishing Guide - contact Capt. Mark Dickson at 843-458-3055 or www.fishmyrtlebeach.com He will guide you on one heck of an inshore fishing adventure - just like you have seen today.

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Speck Trout Bite is on! - 12/29/2009
It is getting late in the season, but there are still a few shrimp being caught aboard the S/V Strucking Fuggling and we are putting them to good use.

The water temp is around the 50 degree mark and it is getting colder by the day! I headed up towards Oak Island / Southport today with Edwin Newell. We fished the bottom of the rising tide (1pm - 4:30pm) and managed to catch 26 -31 trout. The reason I saw 26 - 31 is because I caught 25 - 30 and Edwin managed to catch ONE!!! Ouch - that is right ONE, but he was busy mixing cocktails for us and keeping them topped off!

Most fish were in the 1 - 2 pound range with a few right at 3lbs! It was a great afternoon on the water! Looking forward to fishing tomorrow - going to be cccooolllddd, but I can't stay away!

Happy New Years!

Brandon

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Ocean Isle Beach Speckled Trout Fishing - 12/12/2009
Boy it was COOOOLLDD this morning! Last night I spoke with Ben Speir and we made arrangements for his father to fish with me aboard the Bone Crusher, while he and a friend followed us from hole to hole in search of Speckled Trout.

We rose early this morning and made a cold run to the Little River Jetties. It was a mid-falling tide and the current was ripping out of there (Water Temp 51 degrees.). I felt good about the tide, but the strong current made me feel not so sure. I made a few drifts and did not get a bite, so I made a few adjustments and before long we had dialed in on them. From 6:45am until 8:15am it was just about every 3rd drift we picked up a fish. We managed to catch close to 15 trout with the largest going 6.9lbs followed by a 4.9 and a 4.5. That would have been one hell of a tournament aggregate to have!!

The fishing slowed so we decided to head to the Sunset Beach Bridge - upon arriving there we made a few drifts and a few adjustments until we dialed them in and there we managed to catch another 1/2 dozen fish!

All and all a good day of fishing - I currently hold the top position for the year long Ocean Isle Fishing Center Tournament at 6.3lbs and with this catch I upped my position by over a half pound making it a little harder for the other members of the OIB Trout Mafia to run down the Bone Crusher!!

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Lockwood River Trout Fishing - 12/06/2009
Man we have had some rain over the past few days and weeks! Yesterday the weather was just too nasty so I stayed in the house and caught up on some work so I could play today.

When I woke up this morning it was just too cold to hop in the boat and I was not that motivated. I texted Capt. Kyle Hughes and he had to call me back - said his fingers were stiffened up and he could not begin to text, but he did report he was catching a few.

I checked the tide chart and I saw that 11am was going to be high tide in the Lockwood Folly / Oak Island area - the sun was now out and warming and I decided to make a run for it. I scooped up a few dozen shrimp and headed to the Oak Island Bridge where I managed to boat a dozen+ speckled trout in about two hours. The bite went cold so I headed back toward the Lockwood River shell banks and managed to boat another 10 or so trout. The fish were a little smaller, but they still managed to dunk my cork and give me a good pull!

I monitored the water temp from Ocean Isle Beach to Oak Island and saw fluctuations from 54 - 56 degrees. Trout fishing should remain great until it dips under the 50 degree mark!

Got reports from the Little River area - bite was very slow, but Capt. Kyle did manage to boat a 5.6 pounder!

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Capt. Kyle's Thanksgiving Inshore Classic - 11/28/2009
Team Bone Crusher takes 1st place in the Capt. Kyle's Thanksgiving Inshore Classic. I joined up this year with my ole fishing partner Clay Morphis and his son Clay to fish the tournament. The weather coming into the tournament had been very windy and the conditions had not been optimum at the jetties. Our game place early was to fish a few trusty inshore holes to work on obtaining a 9 - 10lb aggregate, but that all changed when the weather report called for lighter winds on Saturday. With that forecast - we decided to head to the Little River Jetties first thing before the wind did happen to start blowing. We arrived a few minutes before 6pm and positioned the boat in place I knew big fish had been coming from in the previous weeks. Lines in at six and I could not even see my cork. I figured if I caught a fish it would be a lucky bonus fish so I took my chance - I floated my first shrimp and bam the line came tight and I hauled over a 4.0lb speckled trout. What a way to start the morning. The bite was hard and furious until 9:00 am or so. During that time we manage to catch over 25 speckled trout and a handful of redfish.

We had a great day! When it was all said and done we weighed in a 5.8, 4.2, and a 4.0lb speckled trout. Enough to give us 1st Place Overall, 1st Place Aggregate TWT, and 2nd place biggest fish and put $880 in our pockets. Robert Hughes from Calabash, NC bumped out big fish out with a 6.3 pounder!

I look forward to holding my title for a repeat next year!!

Photo below is of Clay and his son Clay with two of the three fish!

Catch 'em up!

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Beaufort, SC Fishing - Austin and Chris Bell - 10/12/2009
This fishing report came from my nephew Austin Bell based out of Beaufort, SC. Austin and his Dad, Chris Bell, from Wampee, SC teamed up with one of their hometown friends to head out this past Saturday morning to fish the backwater and creeks of the Port Royal Sound. I don't have the complete story, but you can see from the pictures that they had a great day.

Austin is one heck of a fisherman and spends countless hours behind my mom and dad's house catching drum, flounder and trout!

Can't wait to take you guys fishing this Thanksgiving! The trout bite will be on!

This is official known as the North / South Inshore Fishing Rumble! Austin be sure to send pictures of the fish you catch this weekend!

Uncle Brandon

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Little River Fall Red Fishing - 10/11/2009
Well it has been a while since I have updated my fishing report. With the invent of Facebook it makes it too easy to send the pics straight from my phone to my Facebook profile.

As you can see from the photos - the annual fall redfish bite is on at the jetties! I arrived today at the jetties on a mid-rising tide and drifted the inlet with live mullet. From the moment I arrived until the tide became slack the drum bit. I ended up 10 for 14 on this monsters. They ranged any where from 20 pounds up to the 35 - 40 pound range! They are one heck of a fight, remember to get them to the boat as quick as you can so you can get a good release out of them.

Can't wait to get back down there. Water temp 73.5 and pretty green!

See the few other photos below from Saturday - I took Sloane and Sydney fishing and we managed to catch a few puppy drum on popping cocks with live shrimp!

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2009 Pamlico Sound Monster Red Drum Fishing - 08/21/2009
Wheww what a weekend! We just made our annual trip to the world renowned Driftwood Motel at Cedar Island to hunt down MONSTER RED FISH. We had a total of 4 boats and 11 guys that made the voyage including:

Brandon Sauls
William Southard
Clay Morphis
Kyle Hughes
Grady Gordon
Squid
Brian Aycock
Austin Aycock
Brandon Aycock
Brian Pair
Brian Pairs Comrade

I had William Southard and Clay Morphis with me aboard the Bone Crusher. We steamed up to Harkers Island on Friday to catch bait and do a little inshore fishing before it was time to head up to Cedar Island. See the photos below of the smaller drum and flounder we caught off the rock groins of Harkers. By 3pm we had all the pogies we needed and pulled the boat out to head on up the road. We arrived at the Driftwood Motel where we met up with the other guys and planned our strategies. By 6:30pm we were sitting off of Swan Island, anchored and chumming waiting on the bite. Well I must admit - we did not get a single strike the first night while the other three boats caught fish all around us. Boy you want to talk about somebody being upset - I could not figure out what in the world was going on. To make a really long story short we found a full leak and was able to get it patched up for night #2. Nothing like having 5 gallons of 87 Octane Unleaded Fuel in your chum slick.

A front swept through on Saturday afternoon and the weather did not look good at first - well it turned out to be the calmest night on the water I have ever been on. With the fuel leak stopped and a strong chum slick out the back of the boat the bite turned on. We went 7 for 9 on the Monster Reds. They ranged from the low 20 pound range all the way up to 40 - 45 pounds. It was so calm we could hollow from boat to boat - no need for a VHF.

I have plenty of funny stories to tell that I can only highlight below - next time you see me ask me about them. We will need to sit down with a cold six pack and be ready to laugh until your ribs hurt:

Willy Falling out the boat in the middle of the night on the Pamlico
Boat darn near sinking from a bait tank pump that blew off
Motor darn near blowing up with the fuel leak larger then the Exxon Valdez spill
Taking a another man's rod
The infamous Boatswain dinner
Bluefish on Grady's Muffler
The mysterious Viking Man

Looking forward to next year’s trip! Going to be bigger and better!

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2009 Pamlico Sound Monster Red Drum Fishing

9.2 Pound Flounder Caught on Nearshore Wrecks - 08/08/2009
Team Aycock composed of Brian and Austin teamed up aboard the Bone Crusher for a day of inshore wreck fishing. I checked the nearshore weather forecast on Friday night and it was looking good. I called up Brian and we decided to head offshore to the nearshore reefs, specifically Melon Ball Rock in search of flounders.

We started off our morning at 7am catching bait right off my dock. By the way the menhaden have been the thickest I have ever seen in the waterway. We loaded our bait tanks and off to the Melon Ball we went. We arrived and with in 30 minutes the bite turned on - in the next 20 minutes we would have 3 fish that would go over 18lbs and one was cut in two.

The first flounder caught by Austin is the best story of them all. At first Austin appeared to be hung and he had to work his line back and forth to free it from the wreck. Once freed, he began to fight the fish to the surface - on the way to the surface the fish got hit by a barracuda. When it surfaced it looked like a hammerhead shark with the flounder laying crossways in his mouth. We quickly realized it was a barracuda and by the time we could beat him off and get the dip net around the flounder he bit it in two. Even with the fish bit in two it still weighed 4.5 pounds.

The next fish was caught by me - I felt the flounder hit the line like a thunderbolt, with in a few minutes we bailed him over and it went right at 4.7 lbs. A nice fish, but we wanted a big one.

Now here is the top story - Brian Aycock drops down a Ballyhoo that we netted and within a minute BOOM the fight was on. Up and down the pole went until the fish finally gave and came to the surface, I dipped the fish and my heart was pounding. The fish hit the deck and Brian grabbed the leader were it fell right out of his mouth. Good thing they have a "Net Boy" like me to the rescue. We weighed the fish at the OIFC where we took second in the Fishing Rodeo Flounder Division - 9.2lbs.

All in all we only caught three fish, but these three fish were BIG FISH! I know what I will be doing tomorrow morning.

I also included a really bronze red fish I caught down in the Ashley River with Capt. William Southard last weekend. Those are some of the prettiest colored fish I have ever seen.

Another photo you will see is where Capt. Mark Staci and I went fishing near the Sunset Beach Bridge. We had 5 flounder and 1 Drum. That is a double header flounder / drum i caught at the same time. It was for a brief time.

Last photo - Good job OIFC rental boat! Tide falling - 30 yards from the water!! ha-ha

Until next time!

Capt. BS

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Tubbs Inlet Flounder Bite Is On! - 07/04/2009
Good July 4th afternoon! Boy do I have a report to share with you. Let's cut to the chase and get right to the BIG story. See the photo below of Capt. Larry Spainhour and his wife. Larry and I both started our Friday morning off at the Little River Jetties catching a few redfish, the bite was not hot and we soon went separate ways. I obviously went the wrong way - I was able to scrounge up a few flounder and redfish, but nothing like Larry accomplished. I spoke with Larry and he said he left and headed to an undisclosed top secret hole in Tubbs Inlet. He set out trolling peanut pogies and he said within minutes his rod bent over and he picked it up and went to fighting what felt like a five gallon bucket full of water. He fought the fish to the boat where she completely flipped up and out of the water. Larry said he just knew he had lost her, he was shaken in his boots, the flounder showed her head one more time where his wife was able to net the fish and get it over in the boat! Larry said he knew he had a big fish, but not this big - 9.2 pounds!!!!! I spoke with a few other old local salts and we all agree that is the largest flounder we know of that has come out of Tubbs.

Who says there are no large flounder in Tubbs!!

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Ocean Isle Beach Fishing Report - 06/22/2009
The fishing around Ocean Isle Beach has been spotty for me lately. Some days I will go out and have a few keeper flounder and then days will go by without me even catching one. Same goes for the redfish but not today.

I had the opportunity to fish with my friends from Charleston, Curt Rogers and Eric Labarca and their sons, Beck and Ben. We started off by catching tiger minnows in Tubbs Inlet and doing a little flounder fishing. The tide was rising and the water was a dark coffee color, I managed to pick up one throw back flounder and we decided to push on to the Sunset Beach Bridge. There we spent another 30 minutes without a bite and I knew it was time to head to the old trusty drum hole. The little guys wanted to tug on some big fish. We headed back to the Ocean Isle area where we fished a few docks with live menhaden I had picked up earlier in the day.

It was not long after the first bait hit the water that the redfish bite was on. We managed to catch over a dozen redfish ranging from 4 to 12 pounds. The entire crew had a blast and it was great seeing the younger crew get excited about catching and releasing these fish.

I do have one war wound to mention of - I was attempting to net one of the drum and as I reached out to net it the line broke sending the one ounce sinker back at my forehead at a 100 knots. It hit so hard it broke the skin and I was bleeding like a stuck pig. I was able to get the bleeding to stop, but not before the pop-knot swole up the size of the once sinker!! Gotta be tough!!

Sorry for not posting more often - I can't catch fish and seems like I'm taking care of the girls more over often! Shhh - I'm slipping back out this afternoon!

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Sloane & Sydney - Little River Red Breast Site Fishing - 05/04/2009
This is the way you go about getting your kids into fishing and hunting. I remember my first few trips as a kid - my dad always "made" sure we busted 'em. Well Capt. Mark Dickson of Shallow Minded Inshore Charters, invited me and my girls down this afternoon to fish a golf course pond behind his house. He told me the bass, brim, and red breast have been on fire the past week or so. I gathered Sloane and Sydney and we steamed down to his house after stopping at Island Tackle and picking up a bucket of night crawlers.

We arrived at Capt. Mark's house and headed down to the pond - it was absolutely wild - it was like site cast to redfish on a saltwater flat. We would toss out the wigglers to the brim and red breast we saw on their beds and there was no hesitation - it was on.

The girls wanted to pet and kiss the fish before we put them back in the pond so they could go back to see their mommy and daddy! Teaching catch and release right out the gates.

See the photos below of Sydney and Sloane catching their first fish!!

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Charleston Red Fish Bite - 05/02/2009

On Friday I headed down to Charleston, SC to stay with a friend of mine, William Southard - we were having our 15 year high school reunion. We both agreed that we needed to rise and shine early Saturday morning before we had to head to Walterboro, SC for the event.

We hit the deck at 5:30am, launched the boat and we were underway to the Charleston Jetties to look for a speckled trout - we did not get 2 miles down the Ashley River until we realized the wind was honking SW 15+ and that was not the place to be in a 17th Key West Flats boat.

Capt. Willy has been scouting a few new holes and we decided to head back to a location in the Ashley River were he had been seeing some reds being caught. By 6:40 we were anchored and Willy made his first cast - boom - down went the cork, I was a little slow to get started, but once I got my drift down it was on.

Now I know you have heard this before - IT WAS ONE OF THE TOP THREE BEST BITES I HAVE EVER BEEN ON - it was not so much the size of the fish or the intensity of the bite, but it was the duration of the bite. Our first fish came when the water was in still on the edge of the grass - the water fell completely out, went slack, and started coming back in and they never stopped biting. We never went more then 10 minutes without a bite - we caught over 40+ redfish in a three hour period - that is one fish every 4.5 mins.

The largest fish was right at 7.5lbs on the Boga and it was a tagged - I have the number and plan on calling it in tomorrow. I will report back with the results.

There is nothing like spring fishing! William is coming up this weekend so I can hopefully reciprocate with a monster trout bite! Let's see if I can produce.

Check out the photos below!!

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1st Place Overall - Tripp and Austin’s 2nd Annual Backwater Battle - 04/25/2009

What a great way to start the 2009 tournament season. The "Dream Team" (Capt. Mark Dickson, Capt. Mark Staci and myself) decided to team up once again this year in attempt to go two for two in the TABB tournament held out of the Holden Beach Marina. We won this tournament last year and the pressure was on for a repeat.

Capt. Dickson came to town on Friday to prepare for the event. Capt. Staci and I had caught all the shrimp we had needed earlier in the week so there was not a whole lot of preparation needed. Just a little beer drinking and trailer tire changing!

We got together that afternoon and devised a plan - catch a speckled trout over five pounds and then head off for a flounder. This tournament requires that you catch both species to win it overall.

We arrived at the Little River Jetties a few minutes after lines in - we headed to a location that have produced a few nice fish in the weeks leading up to the tournament. We dropped our anchor and started drifting shrimp along the rocks. It was not long before Capt. Dickson's pole was doubled over - we were excited thinking we had a large trout, but it turned out to be a redfish. We stuck it out there and managed to pull out a 5.14lb speckled off the rocks. Working off of our game plan we immediately decided to go find a flounder. We had the entire day ahead of us to find one - we had the trout boated by 9am.

We took off to the Sunset Beach Bridge where we managed to catch 2 undersized flounder, we stayed there for a while and started "hole" hoping looking for a legal fish. We knew if we could manage to find a flounder that would measure we would be on the leaderboard. We fished a few more locations from the back of Sunset Beach to the Calabash River.

We found flounder, but no keepers - we headed back to the Sunset Beach Bridge to catch the 11am turn. While waiting Mark Staci dropped a mud minnow over and with the first cast - BAM we had our flounder. It was 17 inches and weighed 2.2lbs! We felt confident in our catch.

We were the 2nd boat to weigh with a few other boats that followed. Capt. Kyle showed up with both species, which put us on edge, but our fish managed to hold up.

Team "Shallow Minded" placed 1st overall with a 7.34lb agg, with Capt. Kyle falling close behind in 2nd and Clay Morphis rounding out 3rd place. That is a great weekend of fishing when you take home $1400!!

It was a great tournament and we are looking for our TRI-PEAT next year!!

Looking forward to heading back down to those rocks. I will hopefully have a few photos to post later today.

Capt. Brandon

Ocean Isle Fishing Center Rodeo Battle is On!!! - 04/18/2009

The Ocean Isle Fishing Center Rodeo is a year long event that pays out $$$ to the top three fish caught in each species category!! It is a fierce battle amongst the local trout mafia!

Last weekend I fished along side Capt. Kyle Hughes and Capt. Bryan Aycock at the Little River Jetties. The heat was on and the trash talking had been heavy leading up to that Saturday. Kyle managed to arrive at the Little River Jetties a little early then Brian and I and un be-knowing to us - Capt. Kyle had already boated a nice fish. Brian chose a location on the outside of the rocks while I chose to fish on the inside. It was not long until we all had a nice fishing and everyone's lips where sealed as to the size of the fish we had caught.

Brian ran off to weigh his fish first - we got the report 6.1lb, which bumped me off the top of the Ocean Isle Fishing Center Rodeo Speckled Trout division. I was a little upset, but I felt confident my fish would weigh. I made the next run to the scales and to my surprise my fish was 6.0lbs - just 1/10th of a pound from regaining my leadboard position. Now it was time for Capt. Kyle to run to the scales and take it all - well wouldn't you know it. He tied Brian with a 6.1lb speckled trout which bumped me to #3 on the OIFC Rodeo leaderboard.

I went to bed that night with my belly in knots! I had no choice, but to get up early and attempt to regain my title. Capt. Brian and I arrived at the Jetties once again within minutes of each other. The water and wind just was not right and after one hour of fishing neither of us caught a fish. Brian decided to head off and I stayed to soak one more shrimp. Well, it paid off. It was not long I was on my way to the Fishing Center to hopefully retake the Rodeo title - the trout was weighed at 6.5lbs, bumping Brian and Kyle out by 4/10th of a pound!!

At this time – I’m still holding on, but there is plenty of time left for a double digiter to be caught!!

Check out the photos below of the trout, reds and my girls going for a boat ride!!

Capt. BS

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Ocean Isle Fishing Center Rodeo Battle is On!!!

The Redfish Rout is on!! - 04/12/2009

It is nice to be out and on the water from my winter hibernation. What a fishing trip to start the year off. On Friday my good friend Chris Brownlee came to town to help me kick off the year trout and redfishing. We fished Friday morning from Ocean Isle Beach to the Little River crossroads where we managed to catch 5 trout and 2 black drum. We were done by noon time, but I was happy to get a little trout slime on the boat.

Today was beautiful and the tide was going to be falling in the afternoon! I managed to sneak out the house around 1:30pm and I headed down to the Little River Jetties. I started fishing a spot where I caught trout early last year - I made ten casts and never got a bite. I still had a feeling it could be on so I moved to the other side of the Jetties. My first cast - the cork went under like thunder - bang - to the boat came a 5.4 lb speckled trout! AHHHH - what a feeling to see the big girls showing up. For the next 1 1/2 hours I caught black and red drum as hard as you could go. I caught over 25 fish as well as my friend Mark Staci who was at the jetties in his boat. The redfish ranged from 18 inches up to 28 inches / 7.5 lbs. Time was running out and I needed to get back - I could not believe it but I left the fish biting!

Overall a great day / weekend! The water temp is in the low 60's and fishing will only continue to improve over the coming weeks.

Click photo for details.

February Redfish and Flounder Fishing - 02/26/2009
Had a great day on the water with Capt. Mark Dickson of Shallow Minded Charters. I received a call last night from Capt. Mark and he said that the reds have been biting in the shallows from Little River, SC to Sunset Beach, NC. I took him up on his offer to go fishing and boy I'm glad I did. It was nice to take a break from the everyday grind - especially during the boring winter days. I had the luxury of having Capt. Mark pole me around in his 17ft Banshee Flats Skiff. We saw quite a few reds and manged to boat five fish by the days end along with a 12 - 13 inch flounder. We were 2/3s the way to catching an inshore slam, but could not muster up a trout.

Overall we had a great February fishing trip. I know were I will be on the next pretty winter day!

Looking forward to spring trout season - it is only a matter of weeks before the roe trout will start showing up at the Little River Jetties.

Click photo for details.

Charleston Inshore Fishing - 01/03/2009
After spending the last two weeks with my family, wife and kids I decided I needed a little "ME" time. I called my buddy, William Southard down in Charleston, SC and told him I would see him midday Friday for a 1/2 day of fishing and then for a full day on Saturday.

Friday afternoon we fished down on the ICW down around TooGooDoo Creek with Sheldon Davis. We managed to capture a few trout and reds, but the wind was howling!

Saturday morning William, Hamilton and I headed out to fish the Ashley River. We had a tank full of mud minnows and went to floating corks. I stayed with throwing "Top Pups" and "Catch 2000's" where I manged to catch a few trout on top water and just under the surface.

We fished until the tied crested and we dropped Hamilton off at the boat ramp - he knew it would light off the moment he stepped off the boat. Well, he was right - as soon as the tied started to fall Willy and I busted the reds and trout with mud minnows on a jig head! We actually left them biting - not often do you do that.

All in all our largest red was around 4 pounds and we had 15+ reds and 10+ speckled trout! It was a great day on those foggy waters!!

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Ashley River Inshore Fishing - 12/06/2008
This past weekend I made a trip down to Charleston, SC to attend Hamilton Harrelson's wedding out on Wadmalaw Island. While he was sleeping in with a swollen head - Capt. Willy Southard and I made a early morning getaway to fish the Ashley River. William has fished these waters only one time and it was tough to pass up "known" good fishing out towards to Bulls Bay area.

Time was limited due to the wedding so we decided to stay nearby and work the waters of the Ashley River to the North of Highway 17. We were unable to get our hands on live shrimp, but we did pick up a couple dozen mud minnows. We floated minnows and threw grubs for the first two hours of the rising tide with no luck. Both Willy and I were a little bummed, but we were tipped off by Sands Barton on a shell bank we should try out. We trolled a 1/4 mile stretch where we picked up our first few speckled trout. We tried quite a few other docks in the area with no luck.

We had about two hours left in our day and we made two stops that made the trip. Our first stop this time was up against a shell bank / point. We floated mud minnows and threw grubs were we picked up 5 more trout and reds. I was starting to feel better about the trip and then Capt. Willy offered up his final hole to us. Now this part is top secret, but I can say it was one of the top 5 redfish bites I have been on. We caught redfish and trout on both cork rigs and jig heads rigged with a live mud minnow. I'm telling you as soon as you bait hit the water you got a hit, if it stayed there for more then 30 seconds then you would begin to wonder what was going on.

We called Hamilton and wished him luck in the wedding; we could not leave this bite. He was in luck though - the tide hit the top of its flow and that ended the bite. The photos do little justice, the bite was too hot to stop and take pics. (Notice how dark these reds are from the river water.)

One side note - see the three photos from Capt. Mark Staci. That is a 8.4lb speckled trout. Tell me that is not a big ole fish that came from the Ocean Isle Beach waters!!

Can't wait until this weekend - I know where I will be!!

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Bone Crusher Takes 2nd in Thanksgiving Inshore Classic - 11/30/2008

Team Bone Crusher took 2nd place Overall, 2nd place Aggregate TWT, and 2nd place Big Fish TWT. We had a 12.00lb aggregate with the big fishing going 4.60 lbs.

Let me start off by saying there may have been a good ending to this fishing story for Clay Morphis and I, but the fishing conditions were absolutely rotten. If you remember it rained from Sun up to Sun down - the wind blew from the West early and by mid morning it had come all the way around to the East.

Clay and I arrived at the Little River Jetties just before lines in 6:00am and secured a location at the Jetty were a few big fish have been caught over the last week. The bite turned on for us just as there was enough light to see your cork and lasted until the wind pushed around to the East. Over a one hour period we landed over a dozen trout, black drum and sheepshead. After this fury of action it was over for us. Other angler's around the jetties said the bite continued on for them, but it just died right off for us.

We did not so much mind that the fishing slowed besides having fun catching them, we felt confident that we would be in the running for the first place spot. We though we had a little more then a 12 pound agg, but that is the way it goes. Either way we were very happy with our 2nd place finishes.

Check out the photo of Clay and I - at this point in the game we were darn near numb from the tip of my toes to the tip of my rod tip.

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Bone Crusher Takes 2nd in Thanksgiving Inshore Classic

Arizona Bass Fishing - 10/27/2008

I have not been fishing much around the home front lately, but where ever my travels take me I find a fishing hole. I was recently fishing with The Hook Up Outfitters on Lake Pleasant Arizona.

I fished on a Ranger Bass boat with Capt. Dale, we struck at 7am that morning in search of top water action. At our first stop it was not long until the baitfish showed and following that the bass and stripers. These fish were not the largest fish in the world, but boy they would just explode on these top water baits. We hung around this area for a while were we managed to catch 6 - 7 large mouths.

Once the sun rose a little higher in the sky we set off to search out different areas of the lake from the damn to back up the river a ways. We jigged at the damn for a while for stripers with no luck, but where the fun started was back up the river. Here I was flipping a rubber crawfish up in the rocks and brush piles. We worked an area about 1/4 mile long just flipping away. It took me a few minutes to get the technique down, but once I got it - it was on.

All in all we managed to catch over a dozen fish made up of large mouth bass and stripers.

Great Trip! See the videos below.

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Lake Pleasant Bass Fishing	"Shit House" Cove
Hauling Ace

New Orleans Fishing Report - 09/26/2008
Lafitte, Louisiana Fishing at its finest. I had the opportunity to travel down to New Orleans on a Bachelor Party with six of my best friends. We had an absolute blast from running Bourbon Street to fishing with Capt. CJ Rojas of Griffin Fishing Charters.

We arrived at the camp around 7am on Friday morning. The tide was falling and going slack so the first two hours of fishing was a little slow. We spot checked a few of Capt. CJ's fishing spots early, but they were dry. It did not take long to locate the fish once the current started moving. We ended on a rock jettie back in the bayou and within 2 hours we boated over 75 redfish, blackdrum, and speckled trout. The fishing was awesome!

See the attached videos and photos!

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Donnie Hooked Up	Donnie - Take Two
Bernice Fighting a Sheepshead	Another Red
Four On at Once	Bernie with the Big Fish

Team BoneCrusher Takes 3rd in Charleston VFW Tournament - 09/20/2008

This weekend I headed down to Charleston, SC to fish the Charlie White Memorial Saltwater Inshore Fishing Tournament with William Southard and Hamilton Harrelson. This tournament allows you to fish any coastal waters starting at 12:01am until 5:00pm the next day and you are allowed to trailer your boat.

We were given the opportunity to fish an old plantation saltwater pond. We arrived on site around 4:30am and started fishing. By 8am we had a dozen redfish, five flounder, and three trout. The fishing in this pond was unreal, by the time we left the pond we had caught over 20 reds and a dozen or so flounder. We had a great time.

The story is out there so I will go on record with it! We manage to boat what we thought was a 29 inch Speckled Trout. We knew we had the tournament won. As soon as the fish was caught we iced him down in the cooler and never looked at him again until weigh in time. The fish did look a little different, but I figured it had been on ice all day and just had a little different look to it's color. Well guess what - it ended up being a Weakfish. Weakfish are predominantly caught in the ocean over wrecks and on occasion around the jetties. Never did it cross my mind that a Weakfish could have come out of a three foot deep pond. The fish did not have the "yellow" look that most weakfish have. Ole well, you live and learn!

The tournament director allowed us to weigh our next trout we had and we still managed to take third!!!

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Team BoneCrusher Takes 3rd in Charleston VFW Tournament

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Sunrise over the Pond

Big Redfish being caught

Little River Jettie Red Fishing - 09/12/2008
The annual Fall run of redfish have begun to show up at the Little River Jetties. Capt. Mark Staci, Nesbit Noble and myself headed down to the Jetties for the afternoon bite. We managed to capture 3 redfish in about 30 - 45 minutes. Not a red hot bite, but we know they are there. The drum seem to be biting on live mullet drifted on the bottom in the main channel of the Jetties. I'm looking forward to this bitting really getting good over the coming weeks!

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Redfishing at the Little River Jetties

Ocean Isle Beach Tropical Storm Hanna Damage - 09/07/2008
Tropical Storm Hanna blew through the Ocean Isle Beach area late Friday night into the morning hours of Saturday. I estimate we had winds sustained at 35 knots gusting to maybe 50 knots or so. Besides all the pine cones down in my yard, we faired through the storm just fine.

The East end of Ocean Isle Beach is a different story. I would estimate that the last 100 yards of East 2nd street and the first 100 yards of Shallotte Blvd have been destroyed. We made it down to the east end of Ocean Isle Beach this morning to take pictures and videos of the damage.

We drove down to the West end of Ocean Isle yesterday and if anything it looks asif they may have gained a bit of sand.

Check out the photos and video below.

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Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 1	Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 2
Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 3	Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 4
Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 5	Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 6
Tropical Storm Hanna Video - Ocean Isle Beach 7