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Fishing continues to be pretty steady in the Little River/ North Myrtle Beach area, and Captain Patrick Smiley (843-361-7445) reports that his boat has had some nice catches in the past week or two. Overall the best fishing has come on the low to rising tide, but fish can certainly be caught at all stages of the tide. Water temperatures are almost 70 degrees.
Patrick’s boat continues to catch a bunch of undersized flounder – fishing in the Little River/ Tubbs Inlet area lots of smaller 12 – 13 ¾ inch fish are being boated (and released). Better keeper-sized fish have been caught around the Cherry Grove Estuary and North Myrtle Beach. Flounder are eating both Gulp! baits as well as mud minnows.
While the flounder keeper ratio still hasn’t gotten great in Little River, a bunch of nice trout including the 3-pounder pictured below have been caught recently. Vudu Shrimp as well as mud minnows are catching trout.
A few redfish under 23 inches have been caught, and there have also been lots of small black drum caught in the Little River area. Both black drum and redfish have been eating fresh dead shrimp well, as well as hard or softshell crabs. When softshell crabs can be caught they are very hard to beat.
Cherry Grove Pier (843-249-1625) reports that two days ago there was a very large catch of bluefish, including some nice-sized fish. There have been pretty good numbers of Spanish including some keepers, as well as whiting, croaker, small perch and a couple of small black drum. A few small flounder are being caught but king mackerel have not yet showed up. The pier has a king tournament on May 14th and 15th, and water temperatures are currently holding at 69 degrees.
At the nearshore reefs both bluefish and Spanish are around in very good numbers, and they are eating live bait or diamond jigs. Hardbaits such as Gotcha plugs that can be worked fast are also good.