Southern Redfish Cup Charleston
- Captain Stephen Flook
- December 14, 2022
What's Crackalacking Fishing Fam! Captain Stephen Here With Another Fishing Report.
It’s been a solid week and great start to Christmas for us on the water. Last week my dad and I fished the Southern Redfish Cup Charleston tournament. It was a great event and we did well. I spent a few days fishing down around Isle of Palms searching for new schools of redfish and was very successful. That said, in the tournament we ran back up to McClellanville so we could fish my comfort zone. We had our 3 fish limit by 7:36am and then went sight fishing the rest of the day. When the tide started coming in, we worked a large school of fish in a foot of water and caught a lot of fish. We were able to upgrade one of our fish to a 23” perfect fish and get rid of one of the small ones. We stayed and fished that school for more than an hour and after catching a handful of fish that were too big we decided to move. With only an hour and a half left of fishing time, we made a quick stop at an old spot of mine and on the 2nd or 3rd cast had another perfect 23” fish and was able to cull out another small fish. When you hook up a good tournament fish with only a little bit of time remaining the pressure is on and when we got that fish to net we were relieved. After catching a few fish that were just a hair over the 23” line, we ran to one last spot but weren’t able to upgrade our last fish. With an hour run back to the ramp we cut it close and made it back with just 3 minutes to spare. It was one of my most memorable days with my dad on the water. We caught all of our fish on the Zman TRD Ned rig in the mud minnow color rigged on an Eye Strike Texas Eye Finesse jighead. We were casting these baits on 8lb braid and 7 1/2ft medium light rods. With a setup like that, shallow water redfish don’t stand a chance.
Sunday to now the fishing has been solid. The water temperatures have been around 59-63 degrees and we have a cold front finally coming in today. The redfish bite has been good as well as the trout bite, and I expect the trout bite to pick up every time we have a cold front.
For trout I like high water-the top of incoming and top of outgoing, fishing oysters and structure along the intercoastal this time of year. Zmans, Mirrodines, Paul Browns, DOAs have all been catching good numbers of trout. We also have been doing well on the fly rod and with topwaters! Throw different colors until you figure out what they want.
This week we also got to fish with Richard and Lauren who we fished back in November. I love having them on the boat. They are so eager to improve and learn new techniques. We patiently worked a school of reds and were rewarded with some quality Lowcountry redfish on artificials-I love to coach and teach and help my clients improve their fishing skills! Our first trip our we worked with Lauren on casting a spinning rod and this time she put the hammer down on a 26” redfish on artificial. Solid work!
Good luck out there and Merry Christmas! If you need help Christmas shopping we offer gift certificates if you want to gift a trip to one of those hard to shop for family members!
Don’t forget to check out our weekly fishing report for McClellanville on the Salt Strong Insider Report-I drop some good info and you get a solid discount on tackle if you’re a member.
Tight Lines,
Capt. Stephen Flook Jr.
Unashamed Adventures offers exciting inshore fishing charters in Charleston, SC. Captain Stephen has been fishing his entire life and can’t wait to get you out on the water. If you’re looking for a great time fishing, look no further than Unashamed Adventures!
