Saltwater Options From The Docks
Maths is evil (I am a professional writer and that statement is grammatically correct). As days of the month are numbers, they too are evil.
This explains why Lori and I arrived a whole day early for a 2-night stay at Fort McAllister State Park, south of Savannah at Richmond Hill. I had the actual day, the 14th, correct, but was looking at the wrong month. We arrived at the state park after the office closed on a Tuesday, instead of Wednesday.
In need of place to park for the night, we headed to Tybee Island and stayed in a hotel I will not mention here. If I could have left a negative star review on Yelp, I would have.
The next morning, we headed out to a public fishing dock on Tybee. The dock has a cleaning station and a small hut where you can buy bait, rent and buy fishing gear.
I asked the gent at the station what he had for bait.
“Shrimp and squid,” he said.
“I’ll take some squid,” I said.
He snorted.
“No good?” I asked.
“If you want to catch stingrays,” he replied.
I got a small container of shrimp, paying a hefty price for the convenience of getting frozen shrimp steps away from where my line would hit the water. Buy your bait at one of the many shops, instead of the little station on the dock. A cup-size container of shrimp set me back literally several times what the same would cost at one of the bait shops.
In two hours of fishing, I caught a tiny shark and small spadefish and had my hook repeatedly cleaned. Others on the dock had about the same luck. Shark fishing is not permitted from the pier.
The author with his mini-shark from the Tybee Island Pier. Photo by Lori Reynolds.
The fish under the public docks are highly educated. The No. 2 hooks I used were appropriate for the shrimp I was fishing with, but hard to get a hook set because the fish are very hook shy. Even smaller ream hooks would do better. I suspect going out with a No. 10 hook and a tougher bait than thawed shrimp would see more hookups, but the size of the fish would also be small.
Big spadefish are good eating, but none put in an appearance. Certainly, some big trout and big reds are landed off that dock, but these are fish cruising by. The pier’s resident large fish are not interested in something that bites back.
The very tail of the shrimp drew no bites. Smaller fish would do their best to clean out the meat down to where the hook pierced the shell. The bigger fish must have learned they cannot knock the tail piece off the hook as easily as the rest of the shrimp.
Squid would hold on the hook better.
I believe fishing in the twilight hours would be better as the fish could not see hooks or line. Fishing at night would be even better, but the pier is closed when it is dark.
After lunch we headed to the state park. Fort McAllister is a former Confederate coast fort that was annihilated by the Union. Henry Ford partly rebuilt it and now the State of Georgia owns it as a park and historical site. It has plenty of history to see including a small museum at the main office.
The angling is year-round at Fort McAllister. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
A run back out to a marina outside the park was needed to restock with shrimp and some pyramid sinkers. A pack of No. 4 snelled hooks was added from the park gift shop and I headed to the fishing dock at the park. The park office sells some fishing gear, including rod and reel combos, but no bait.
Major difference – I was actually getting bites I could detect and I was catching fish. The pressure here is a lot less than the public pier on Tybee. I caught several croakers, small stingrays and some hardhead catfish. Fishing really picked up when the tide started rolling in or rolled out. At slack tide, the bite was off.
Saltwater catfish called hardheads are common catches on the Fort McAllister pier. Photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
The croakers were eating size, but I was not interested in keeping any. They were also a bit too big for live bait right then.
Had I been in a boat or had a pier net to haul a big redfish out of the water, yes, I would have run a line with a croaker on it. The pier on Tybee had a drop net anyone can use to haul a fish up. I did not have one at the Fort McAllister pier.
Getting down to the water is doable at the Fort McAllister pier. It is not easy. If you are trying to land a really big fish that way, it is a two-person operation.
One person has to stay on the pier with the rod. The other person navigates a path down to the water around trees, stumps and other hazards. Once at the water, the person on the ground can try to pull the fish up by grabbing the line or take the rod and pull the fish out that way.
If you plan to fish that pier for big reds, then take a rope net you can lower down, catch the fish and haul it up. Fingerling mullet or small croakers should bring in the big fish. Small live land crabs abound on the ground and even climb trees, as Lori found out while walking around. They too make excellent bait.
As for the park, the cabin where we stayed is amazing. A full kitchen and a huge main room have everything you may want except Internet service. The two bedrooms have two queen beds in each one, both with a bathroom. The cabins sleeps eight people, possibly more, depending on who gets the couch and the floor.
One of the rental cabins at Fort McAllister State Park. Photo by Lori Reynolds.
Each lodge is raised off the ground so if you cannot do steps, make sure you book the handicapped lodge. Two lodges are pet friendly and all are non-smoking inside. You can light up on the screened-in front or back porch. The back porch overlooks the marshes.
RV slots and tent camping are available. For those who really want to rough it, a 1.5-mile hike into the interior gets you to a primitive campground that only has an outhouse, no water or electricity. If you take that route, be sure the only thing you leave behind is footprints.
Ben Baker is the Executive Editor of B&H Publications, including the Wiregrass Farmer Newspaper in Ashburn. He can be contacted at redneckgenius@gmail.com.