• Savannah Saltwater Fishing Report (Part 2) - GA

    Miss Judy Charters
    http://www.missjudycharters.com
  • Miss Judy Charters provides Inshore fishing, Offshore fishing, and Gulf Stream fishing charters. Whether it's sport fishing for the serious angler or a leisurely day for the family, we have the trip for you. We have been fishing in Savannah, Tybee and adjacent waters for over 50 years. We have the knowledge for your inshore and offshore fishing adventure.

  • Savannah Saltwater Fishing Report (Part 2) - GA

    Savannah Snapper Banks
    Saturday October 25, 2014 Brad Norman Group



    Brandon, Adam Vessell, Brent carter, Justin carter, Brad Norman
    Hogfish feed how??




    Captain Greg Harvey is holding up a nice hog fish that he shot while diving in about 110 feet on a live bottom area located at the Savannah Snapper Banks. Captain Greg is a very avid diver! He only shoots what he plans on eating or giving to someone else. Most hogfish caught in this area are done so by divers. Over the course of 50 years I have seen a few hog fish caught. And since Captain Greg explained to me how they feed, it’s no wonder that fishermen using hook and line have not been so successful. The picture below showing the hog fish mouth design helps to explain this feeding operation a little better.



    This a hog fish’s mouths design. While Goldie Harvey was holding this hog fish’s mouth open, her husband Greg explained the feeding process. The hog fish with mouth closed burrows its nose down into the sand on the ocean floor. After the hog fish get its head situated in the ocean floor, it then opens it mouth, and sifts through the sand eating the eatables and releasing the non eatable through its gill plates. It seems from the description of how this fish feeds that it uses its strong front teeth to hold and dig on the bottom instead of biting something and killing it.

    Blue water suggestions

    Believe me bottom fishing is the way to go especially you can’t catch anything while dragging baits. And there is this thing called “Prospect Fishing!”



    Wendy Coats with some monster trigger fish! Caught while bottom fishing at the stream!

    Calling all fishermen on the back deck!
    It is a known fact that when fishermen go trolling there is a list of rules to go by. When trolling at the Gulf Stream, at least while aboard the Miss Judy Too, we had some serious rules. As the trolling spread was being arranged fishermen would decide a sequence of the way things should take place such as:

    Who was going to reel in the first hooked up fish? Does a hit/miss count? This is where you could get hooked up for a short moment or you get what I used to call a fly by. Normally, at least on my boat, we counted this as a fish landed although it was not.

    We always discussed the clearing of the lines and who was going to do what. I always explained it like this: Once someone is hooked up, I make the called on whether or not to pull in all lines. If it’s a fish that will require some extra turns and twists in the boat movement department to land then all lines have to be cleared. Once this decision is made to clear all lines this should be done as quickly as possible. But then as always when it comes to fishing for the big boys there is always another kind of catch opportunity that needs to be considered. And sometimes it is a little risky! We called it “Prospect Fishing!”

    The fish aren’t swimming any longer! However, they are still communicating!
    Listening to the fishes!



    Taking prospect fishing in to consideration..if these fish could still communicate here’s what I think they would be saying!

    First Wahoo, youngest and smallest: I am younger so I thought I could get to the bait faster than you old guys, but when the entire school starting falling in the water column it was if we all could grab a quick bite and move on…if only there wasn’t a hook involved!

    Second Wahoo with mouth just a going: I told you guys that feeding in a school isn’t such a good idea!
    Third Wahoo with mouth open: Yes, this is now so true, but in my defense, when you took the tail off the first bait and then all the baits started falling in the water column, well, I thought it was sort of a free meal! I know, dummy me!

    Third and fourth Wahoo mouths closed here’s what they are thinking: I don’t think any of us are going to get out of this situation…oh well it was so good while it lasted! I wish these fishermen wouldn’t hold us up by our tails, it so makes me so nauseated!

    Two smaller amberjack lying on dock one named Gertrude and the other He-Cliff. He-Cliff said, “Well, Gertrude, you had to just go ahead and fight me for that prefect live bait and then as if sent from above another bait just dropped in…From this view I can see quite a few of us made the same mistake! Boy, those air breathing two legged creatures up there on the surface are especially good when it comes to getting our attention! If only…………………I had thought about it a little before acting! And to think my last meal wasn’t that good after all!” Gertrude replied, “Shut up He-Cliff!”

    Prospect fishing at its finest!
    There are times that you are instructed to drop back the bait that was just hit, but missed. Then, there is this other suggestion, which is, when you get a hit, you don’t just drop the hit bait, you drop all baits back. This would be called “Prospect fishing at its finest!” And you know the old saying, “where you have fish you have fish.” Well, in this case of a hit you now have a hungry fish and possibly more than one!

    In all of my years of fishing I have found that when larger fish feed in most cases they don’t do so alone. The reason being is it’s always going to be less work and more feeding opportunity, if you have help herding the baitfish into some sort of a pattern. I know I am leaning into the fact that fish communicate and why wouldn’t they?

    Why is Prospect fishing sometimes Risky!
    It’s simple and all fishermen want to try this situation on for size: Prospect fishing could result in too many big fish hooked up at one time! In my book every time this happened it was a very good problem to have.

    Freshies Report
    It’s Time!

    For fresh water fishing at its finest, please give Bill Vanderford a call!!

    Bill Vanderford is “Lake Lanier’s Legend!”
    http://www.georgiafishing.com/
    If you want to go, it’s time to make your spring time plans!
    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


    Little Miss Judy’s Believe It or not Story!
    Happy Halloween 2014!

    Before putting on the cat costume! I think I have the same hair cut today!!

    Halloween 1958 Style



    My father always took me out for Halloween so that I could collect my annual brown bag of candy. I always dressed up and it was a lot of fun. I tried everything from homemade costumes to the store bought ones. They all seemed to do the trick. However there was this one particular store brought costume that I will never forget. My father saw a cat costume and he brought it home. I was about 7 years old at the time, so therefore dressing up like a cat wasn’t such a bad idea, at least until daddy made certain alterations to the costume. The tail of the cat costume simply just hung there. Daddy checked it out and found that he could stuff my tail with some of the white so-called cotton that he used for caulking repairs on his wooden boats. I didn’t care all I was thinking about was all of the candy that I was going to get and how much I could eat in one night. After stuffing the tail with the so-called cotton he created a big problem. The tail was too heavy so it just fell to the ground. Now I had a cattail that was 3 dimensional, but it wouldn’t stand on its own. I could tell that Daddy was in a mood or maybe he had a few cocktails. Now he broke out the fishing line. His plan was to tie one end to the tail and the other end to the back of my costume, which he did in a fast fashion. I now had me a state of the art moving cattail that actually swayed with my walk. (Remember the lion’s tail in the Wizard of Oz) I was ready to go “Trick a Treating” in my now daddy designer store bought costume.

    Our first stop was great! I got lots of compliments on my costumes and plenty of candy. I really made a haul. Daddy even got a beverage to go. As the evening went on my brown bag got heavier. According to Daddy my “Trick a Treating” was just about over, which wasn’t good news, but heck I was a little tired from all of the walking with my tail swaying. We must have visited at least 10 houses. Our last stop had the noise of a barking dog in the background. I was a little afraid of dogs, due to the fact that one of our neighbor’s dog had bitten me once before. I approached the door with caution. The dog was really barking at this point. When the door opened I saw the dog, which didn’t appear to be that large, but it sure had a big mouth. Somehow after the owner told me that the dog didn’t bite it escaped heading right for me. (I’m sure I looked like a small deer in headlights!) Of course I did what any seven year old dressed like a cat would do I ran with tail swinging in tow. The dog lunged and became attached to my tail. This as you can imagine slowed me down a bit. I could see my father running toward me, but it seemed as though he was in slow motion. At this point the tail ripped off, but unfortunately the fishing line didn’t break. So now I had the latched dog in tow. Things couldn’t get much worst. I had dropped my brown bag and now had a dog attached to my tail. I finally met up with my father and he immediately picked me up leaving the small dog still hanging. The dog owner apologized as he removed the dog from my tail. The rest of the story is easily figured out, we went home. However the candy haul for this particular house was unbelievable. I guess the bottom line is that you pay for what you get. In this case a little entertainment goes a long way. The moral of this story is a simple one. “So-called cotton was made to stuff only into the cracks of wooden boats and fishing line is made for fishing not tail tying. Any alterations can certainly change the course of an evening and especially in this case it certainly did!”
    However, way before the candy was gone my cat’s tail was history! Now that I think about it the only good about getting chased by this dog was the fact that he relieved me of my cotton filled cat’s tail.

    Cotton Phobia
    As I am writing this story I have chill bumps popping up all over me. For some reason every time I think about or touch cotton this happens to me! As I got older this cotton phobia seem to get worst not better. I remember this one time that I had a headache and wanted to take an aspirin. Well, I removed the cap off the aspirin bottle, I saw the cotton inside, I then put the cap back on, because I would have rather have had the headache than touch the cotton. I know this sounds crazy but I still to this day do not like to touch cotton! So as a child dressed like a cat with cotton stuffed in my tail I really didn’t think about it too much especially since I didn’t have to look or touch it. Happy Halloween!

    Thanks for reading! Captain Judy

    Once again Happy Halloween from all of us over here at Miss Judy Charters..This is me and Piper showing off one of our scary looks!
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