Captain Judy fishing report ,Savannah, 1-16

[Fishing Report]

CAPTAIN JUDY HELMEY

“Kicking Fish Tail Since 1956”

POB 30771

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA 31410

912 897 4921 912 897 3460 FAX

www.missjudycharters.com

Captain Judy’s email fishjudy2@aol.com

January 17, 2011



Saltwater Inshore, Offshore, Blue Water fishing reports, Freshies Suggestions, and “Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not story! Thanks for Reading!



Table of contents



Inshore and offshore schools date

Inshore learning trip dates listed (on the water classes)

Captain Jack McGowan offers up a great winter time fishing report!

Brian Dixon’s Shark catching adventure “Fishing on the Beachfront during hot months”

A good tip for inshore fishermen dealing with cold weather and cold water

Artificial Reefs Report Jan 15, 2011 Richard Henry Group

Savannah Snapper Banks It’s time to go plain old bottom fishing! A cold January 14, 2011 fish catching day!

Gulf Stream Suggestions “It’s time to go!”

Freshies Report Queen Charlotte Haida Indians Narrarted by Duane Foerter by Bill Vanderford

Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not! It’s all about the tires, which daddy called “bumpers and personal irrigations systems!”



Inshore and offshore schools date



2011 Schools dates are

INSHORE FISHING CLINIC

Two Inshore Schools

Saturday February 19, 2011

Saturday March 12, 2011



One Offshore School

Saturday March 5, 2011



Time: 8:00AM – 2:00 PM

Place: Tubby’s Tank House 2909 River Drive, Thunderbolt, Georgia 31404

Cost: $100.00 (included one day class, breakfast, and lunch)

Please call 912 897 4921 now for reservations

Please sign up as soon as possible! There is limited entry!

Capt Judy’s email fishjudy2@aol.com

Capt Judy’s Cell 912 429 7671

For more details on the school please go to…

http://missjudycharters.com/fishingclinic.shtml





Inshore learning trip dates listed (on the water classes)



Learning Inshore Trip Offered on Sunday February 20, 2011 and Sunday March 13, 2011



Prices are for $125.00 for each fisherman for 4 hour inshore learning trip

(Pricing based on up to three to four fishermen per inshore boat)

The captain will provide boat, bait, tackle, ice, and fishing licenses.



Fishermen will need to bring food and drink

Departing from Miss Judy Charters Dock

8:30 AM till 12:30 Noon



Fishing grass line, mud flats, and salt ponds for red fish on the out going

Fishing for spotted sea trout when where and why’s

Areas and scenarios for getting best shot at catching a flounder

Sheepshead fishing

Effective ways to catch fish for all seasons

Striped bass fishing or either demonstrations of best ways to catch them

Basic tackle rigging and uses for it



For those that already have three to four persons ready to sign up, please let me know.



If you are a single person and would like to join a group, please let me know and I will put you on the waiting list.



You do not have to attend the Saturday February 19, 2011 inshore school to be able to sign up for this boat learning trip.



The captains that will be participating in this on the water school will be



Captain Ray Crawley, Captain Rick Reynolds, Captain Jack McGowan, Captain Alan Collins, and Captain Matt Williams



Please sign up as soon as possible! There is limited entry!

Capt Judy’s email fishjudy2@aol.com

Capt Judy’s Cell 912 429 7671

For more details on the school please go to…

http://missjudycharters.com/fishingclinic.shtml



Offshore Learning Trips Offered on March 6, 2011

(Limited entry can only take up to 10 passengers)

$125.00 per person



Captain Judy will provide boat, bait, tackle, ice, and fishing licenses.



Fishermen will need to bring food and drink

Departing from Miss Judy Charters Dock

8:30 AM till 2:30 Noon



For those that want to experience an on the Miss Judy Too techniques for catching black sea bass, Sheepshead, mackerel, cobia, barracuda, amberjack, grouper, and etc I suggest consider signing up for this trip

And heck I plan on actually doing a little catching!

(In the event we catch fish, fish cleaning is extra!)



Please sign up as soon as possible! There is limited entry!

Capt Judy’s email fishjudy2@aol.com

Capt Judy’s Cell 912 429 7671

For more details on the school please go to…

http://missjudycharters.com/fishingclinic.shtml



Inshore

Captain Jack McGowan offers up a great winter time fishing report!





Captain Jack McGowan and Thomas Fassuliotis holding a nice cold water red fish



Captain Jack McGowan’s fishing report

Wintery days have limited fishing opportunities. When the weather has allowed fishermen have caught redfish, stripers, Sheepshead and sea trout. The winter time live baits are mud minnows, finger mullet, fiddler crabs and menhaden. In cold water a redfish or sea trout bite on live bait is typically very slow soft bait. The bite on a plastic is a little more aggressive. Days with some cloud coverage are typically the best. When the skies are completely overcast and water is clear it can be difficult to see more than a foot away from your boat. Overcast skies and clear water can make the surface of the water like a mirror. A question fishermen can ask themselves is how many redfish have they failed to see. Likely given those conditions there been redfish that just were not seen.

Lots of large redfish are covered with sea lice. These sea lice are a small creature that shows up during the winter. These little creatures indicate redfish moving in from deeper water onto the flats. These creatures are thought to be harmless nonetheless you might experience small blisters if your hands come into contact with them. The prevailing thought is when redfish are covered with sea lice these are “new fish” coming into from deeper recesses in the sounds or ocean. Seeing redfish covered with sea lice could be a good thing much like ducks pushed in by a cold front. One fisherman said it’s all about the bait. Redfish are coming up on the flats are looking for bait. When you find an area with lots of pogies or mullet it’s likely you’ll find some nice reds! When pogie are flicking on top of the water likely cow nose rays are under them. Popping the head off the small pogie and fishing it on a jig on the bottom can be productive way to catch some dandy reds!

During the winter ideal colors and patterns for redfish are those that imitate a pogie or mullet. Other effective colors are gold, copper, new penny, Arkansan shiner and a red/gold shiner.

Despite the challenges of winter time fishing can be fun and rewarding! Chris Weber and I fished some of flies in recent days experiencing nice schools of redfish! Chris is of the best commercial fly tiers of both warm and salt water flies. Some of my favorites are Chris’s Carolina critter, rattle shrimp and crystal minnow flies. Winter time is an awesome time to fly fish for stripers as well!

Keep what you plan to eat and release the rest! Lastly support your CCA Chapter by becoming a member. Fish On! Capt. Jack McGowan







Photo by Captain Jack McGowan

Tim Corley is holding up a nice cold water red fish, which he caught while fishing with Captain Jack



Brian Dixon’s fine tooth shark catching adventure



Fishing on the Beachfront during the hot months



Brian Dixon is holding his just caught fine tooth shark. This fish was caught in about 8 foot of water while fishing off the Little Tybee Island Beach front during middle summer.











Since it’s cold I though I would write about the hot times. Then I remembered a couple of shark pictures that Brian Dixon has sent me last year from his 2010 summer time fishing season. He had caught this shark while fishing in about 8 feet of water off the beach front near little Tybee Island. As far as bait Brian was using everyone’s favorite menhaden. I have to add during the hot months using menhaden as bait offers a lot of bite opportunity. Last year fishermen caught everything from large 50 pound trophy red fish to 100 pound plus tarpon to giant stingrays to mega sharks while using whole live and part/pieces of menhaden as bait. The bottom line to this bait is that you can catch your own and it works whole fresh, live, and cut into pieces. A fish cruising by this bait just has to eat it!



When Brian first hooked up this fish it fought like a normal small composite shark while hooked up on light tackle. After a few minutes he got a glance at the shark and it didn’t look like all the others. With cell phone in one hand and rod in another he dialed my number. At the time I happened to be heading home while making way through the Warsaw Sound channel. I answered and Brian asked, “Have you ever caught mako shark close to the beach?” When I get ask an unusual question like that I want to say “No,” but then I start to thinking and then answered “No, but it’s the ocean and they swim where they want.” From the picture below the blue tint on the shark’s first pass by the boat just might get you to thinking in this direction. I suggested that Brian take pictures and send it to me, which he did.



Once I received the picture I knew it wasn’t a mako, but wasn’t sure what it was. It really didn’t look like any of the sharks that we normally catch. So I sent the picture to the DNR and they identified is as a fine tooth shark, which is not caught in this area very often. So therefore a big congratulation goes out to Brian Dixon for catching, releasing, and reporting!







Here’s an in the water picture of Brian Dixon’s fine tooth shark, which isn’t normally caught around this area. The best way to describe or identify this shark is to look at its teeth design. It has needle like teeth unlike its other shark biting cousins. Please note: “Needle sharp teeth can still offer up a nasty pointed bite!” Handle with care and release as soon as possible!



A good cold water tip for inshore fishermen



Dealing with cold weather and cold water



Just because it’s cold weather and the water is cold doesn’t mean you should not go fishing. I don’t know about you, but staying too much inside and not getting out on the water the old scales start their drying out thing. However, I really don’t like cold windy days so therefore when I do go fish I pick my days wisely.



If we have a warming trend, which we are always hoping for this could be a bonus for a catching day. If you happen to have a low tide stage that falls in the middle of the day exposing the mud at the warmest time of the day this situation will add to your possible catching value. Now if the sun didn’t get to shine on that particular day there is still some warming value offered. After all you know the fish have to eat sometimes so therefore you might as well be there to do your feeding part. The bottom line to this suggestion is…if you don’t go at different times “how the heck are you going to get good at these situations?”







Artificial Reefs Report

Sheepshead fishing at the artificial reefs

Richard Henry Group

January 15, 2011 Departure 9:00 AM



It was a beautiful day to be on the ocean on Saturday, January 15, 2011. We departed at 9:00 AM and headed out to the KC artificial reef, which is located in about 45 feet of water. For bait we had about 400 purple back fiddlers, which I had purchased at Coffee Bluff Marina a couple of days before. With this real cold situation, it’s been hard getting down the dock and on to the Miss Judy Too. The dock has had ice and heavy frost, which makes maneuvering tricky. However, no one slipped down or fell into the creek before boarding the boat. I have to honestly say, “I don’t know when it has been this cold in Savannah!”



The water temperature at my dock was 43 degrees at 9:00 AM. As we made way to the KC artificial reef the temperature didn’t change much. Upon arriving at the reef around 10:30 AM the water temperature was 44 degrees. Once I got anchored up I told everyone that I though the Sheepshead bite would be good. However, after about 2 hours of switching places over the wreck and relocating to other spots the Sheepshead bite still wasn’t happening. The best news was the fact that all on board were fishermen and they knew what they were experiencing was “fishing only!” Thanks goodness I had fishermen that understood and didn’t want to give up. After Kathy pulled the anchor about 20 times I finally decided the Sheepshead bite might just not take place. So I made a decision to just stay anchored where I was and play the waiting game. Please keep in mind that I had anchored the boat in the right spot just about every time, but the “not getting bites at all” situation prompted me to want move.



I watch as the water temperature finally got to about 47 degrees and it seemed that this was the turning point. We stared getting bites so light that you couldn’t even feel them, which boiled down too…if you happen to move your rod at the right time you hooked up maybe. Please keep in mind that the first two hours that we fished we didn’t even get a bite much less a nudge. After about 4 hours into the fishing trip we started getting more solid Sheepshead bites, but still were able to get the hooking up moves right. I have always said, “When you are at least getting bites you can then figure out the bite pattern.” However, it’s definitely hard to catch a fish that isn’t biting! As I said, “no bites at all were taking place.”



Once we started getting a few light hits we started figuring out the bites handed and this is when we started catching fish. If we had of given up we would have come home empty handed. I would like to say, “I was lucky that I had such a great fishing group that hung on until the catching begin!”



So therefore I would like to report that Sheepshead and black drum fishing is good, but you certainly do have to work for it! As far as the black sea bass bite in 45 feet of water it was almost non-existence. A few small juvenile black fish were caught, but that was about it! It has been my experience that you need to find water temperature as close to 50 degrees as you can to get a solid black sea bass bite.





Savannah Snapper Banks

It’s time to go plain old bottom fishing!



A cold January 14, 2011 fish catching day!



On Friday January 14, 2011 I took Steve Cianfrini and group bottom fishing. I have to admit that the early morning cold temperatures most likely broke records on this particular day. If it didn’t it should have! I have never seen all the rails on the Miss Judy Too completely covered with frost. All rails looked like they had been painted white.



It was my plan to head out to the middle snapper banks and fish in around 100 feet of water. The water temperature at the dock was 42.9 degrees. As I passed different depths of water I made a note of the water temperature. Once officially in the ocean I started making notes of water temperatures at certain depths. At around 40 feet of water while passing the KC artificial reef the water temperature was 44.7 degrees. When I passed over 55 feet of water, which is about where the L Buoy is located the temperature was around 45 degrees. When I got in about 70 feet of water, which is about 20 miles off the Warsaw Sea Buoy the water temperature was 48 degrees. Once arriving reach 85 feet of water the temperature finally got over 50 degrees. As the day warmed up or should I say went from middle thirties to over mid forty degrees the water temperature was around 55 degrees. Even at high noon the water never got over 56 degrees. I found the most solid black sea bass bite once I got over 50 degrees water temperature. The bite got better when I reach 55 degrees water temperature.



Now I know you must be tired of listening about water degrees. However, since we are dealing with these crazy cold weather days it’s best to fish where you find a temperature break of some sort. In this case the temperature break was from 51 to 55 degrees. As long as I stayed in this degrees of water and fished over small patches of live bottom the bite action was very solid. We kept 90 nice size black sea bass over 14 inches, which was our 15 per person bag limit. We caught a total of 226 fish, which broke down like this: 90 keeper black fish, 105 undersized black sea bass, which were immediately released, 1 trigger fish, 12 reef runners, also called cigar fish, 11 sand perch, and 7 bank sea bass.



Along with catching all of these fish our customers got to see all kinds of interesting sea birds, dozens of Atlantic spotted dolphin, and one small humpback whale rolling on the ocean’s surface. All in all it was the perfect coldest day I have ever spent on the ocean!



With all this being said, “I already know that I am the luckiest person in the world to get to experience all these things in the wild!”







Fishing seasons that is closed…



Can’t keep vermilion snapper (closed November-March)

Can’t keep genuine red snapper (closed 2010 with possible closure extensions)

Can’t keep grouper (closed till May 1)



Gulf Stream Suggestions



My suggestion is especially at this time…if you get good weather be prepared to go…boats have gone during this time in the past and have done quite well in the catching department while doing just a little trolling and strolling! Whatever you do if you get to go, what the heck, give bottom fishing a try! Here’s the best line ever, “You won’t know unless you go!”



Believe me, if you are having cabin fever as I, a run to the blue waters of the gulf stream will definitely make things better.



Freshies Report



Queen Charlotte Haida Indians Narrarted by Duane Foerter by Bill Vanderford



Award-Winning Writer/Photographer/Videograph­er, Bill Vanderford

(www.fishinglanier.com), presents a look at the history of the Haida Indians at Kung Village on Graham Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands through the eyes and voice of Duane Foerter. This cameo of life and death was made possible by Paul Clough and the wonderful people at The Queen Charlotte Lodge (www.queencharlottelodge.com).



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9smP3nF1BA



For those fishermen that want to “GO FISH LAKE LANIER”

Bill Vanderford is “Lake Lanier’s Legend!”

For more about my long time friend Bill Vanderford as well as his accomplishments, his freshwater charter trips or wildlife tours, books written and his special line up of tackle offered, please visit his site http://www.fishinglanier.com/contact.html for all the details! For more details go http://stores.ebay.com/Fishy-Racer http://www.youtube.com/fishyracer www.cafepress.com/grapefruitshop









Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or Not!





Here’s an oldie, but a goody! This is me (The young 21 year old Captain Judy Helmey) securing the first of a many Miss Judy fiberglass boats. Although I could tell about a dozen stories in regards to this picture at this time I will only share one.



It’s all about the tires, which daddy called “bumpers and personal irrigations systems!”



My father loved to take things that were meant to be used for one thing and then turn around to find some other use for them. His most famous change over use was for the old automobile tire. He had a lot of different usages for this particular item. He would line the dock with them. In fact you could hit the dock just about anywhere without fear of slamming into the wood parts. There was of course a down side to this act. When the tires were subjected to saltwater they became a little gummy, which in turn rubbed off on the side of the boat. Most of our boats had white painted wooden hulls with black stripes. You already know where the black stripes came from,



My father didn’t stop with the dock when it came to using discarded tires. To this day if you dug deep enough around the base of our trees located on the property on which Miss Judy Charters is located, you will find them. Before he put the tire over the tree he would slice one side of it. The sliced side would be put face down on the ground. When it rained water would collect in the tire and eventually drain thought the sliced openings. His reasoning was a simple one. Daddy considered this design his own “personal irrigation system.” I have said this many times…I wish you all could have met my father. He was a sport model for sure!



Here’s My Line Now Bite My Hook!



Captain Judy