• Savannah Area Fishing Report - GA

    Coastal Georgia Charter Fishing
    (912) 617-5577 http://www.charterfish.com/
  • Captain TJ Cheek started fishing the waters of St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island, St. Mary’s, and Cumberland Island with his father, grandfather, and uncles back in the 1980′s. Since then he has had the opportunity to learn from some of the best fishermen and guides on the east coast.

  • Savannah Area Fishing Report - GA

    It’s transition time again! It’s that time of year where we start looking for the water temperature to get to 65 again… just this time we’re looking for it to cool off rather than warm up. Usually once it gets in the low 60s the big Redfish will trickle out but the inshore bite will be off the charts.

    Truth be told it’s pretty good already and we’re getting solid mixes of Trout, Redfish, Flounder, Tripletail, and throwing in some Bull Reds here and there. For those that are looking specifically for Bull Reds they have been easy to find and catch. Folks are even catching them regularly from the pier on St. Simons Island.

    My 3 year old even got in on some rat Redfish fun when I had to cancel a trip earlier this week. His first fishing trip he said he wanted to fish with bugs so we went bream fishing. Then he wanted to catch a “wittle shark” so we went shark fishing. This time he wanted a Redfish… not a big one, just a “wittle one” so we dialed one up for him. Here’s Jackson with his first Redfish




    As you can see a lot of the rat Reds are starting to grow into the lower slot and they will continue to get bigger by about an inch each month.

    The Trout fishing has also really improved. Where we were catching almost 100% short fish we are starting to see mixed bags and more and more of them are mostly solid keeper Trout. It seems that every year around this time we see a surge in the Trout bite and then it will die off a touch around the first week or so of October, and then rebound to full intensity and stay there until we either have several freezes in a row or until the lousy month of March rolls around.

    If you were wondering where the reports were for the last couple of weeks, I was in St. Augustine for a tournament. I fish the HT Elite Series Redfish tournaments and I fished the St. Augustine Wild Card Open. I had to win the tournament to qualify for the classic so 2nd place was just as good as last place to me.

    During practice I had a wire get cut on my trolling motor which shorted out, burnt up my main board, and froze the motor at max power. You should have seen me when my motor suddenly went to full speed while I was in a foot of water and surrounded by oyster shells!


    I was on one awesome topwater bite and I didn’t want to leave. Check out how hard this fish ate my Zara Spook!




    I called Charlie at Trolling Motor Service in Orange Park and he knew immediately that the board was fried. I loaded my boat on the trailer and made the hour long trip from St. Augustine to Orange Park. 3 hours later Charlie had me back in action and I was able to get my last day of official practice in with no trouble.

    I found some fish on my last day of practice that were the perfect size but they were really slow to eat. I managed to get one on a Z man paddle tail but with the cloud cover I just couldn’t see the fish before they got too close. I had one fish that was about 30 inches swim within a foot of my boat before I saw him!

    On tournament day I had a plan to get the fish in two different spots. I would go where I found the fish on the topwater bite and fish it down to low tide which was about 11 AM. It took me until 10:30 to get my first Redfish. I went through Trout and Flounder like it was nobody’s business but no Redfish. Finally the water fell out of the grass and it was on! I peeked over a shell and there were two 26 inch Redfish laid up just on the other side. Bam. 1 down.

    I caught a few more dinks and got one more slot fish to go in the livewell but I new that my second fish wasn’t going to do it at only 22 inches or so.

    I headed to the dinosaur hole where I had found the fish the day before that wouldn’t eat. This time I had the light in my favor and when I poled onto the flat I immediately started seeing fish. I through the paddle tails at a couple of fish with no luck. I decided to switch to a Texas rigged Z-man shrimp in Houdini color. The Z man baits are buoyant so they won’t bury in the mud or shells. I could flip them in front of the fish and when they got close enough I just had to give the bait a “jiggle”. With the shrimp standing straight up they just couldn’t resist!




    A couple upgrades later my livewell was looking really strong. I headed in to take my chances on the scale.



    When it came down to it I had enough for the win! The check wasn’t huge but that wasn’t the motivation for winning this tournament. I had to win to qualify for the Classic which will be in March in Chalmette, Louisiana and 40 of us will be fishing for a $100,000 first place prize! I wish it wasn’t 6 months away but at least that gives me time to gather my sponsors for the 2015 season.



    If you want to learn more about the HT Redfish Series check out www.theredfishseries.com .
    Until next time… tight lines!
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