# Tybee Island advice? (Savannah, GA)



## HOUSE

I searched the forums and only found one thread from Tybee. Has anyone fished there before? I recently fished Hilton Head Island which is not far, so I'm guessing the tactics are similar. From reviewing satellite imagery of the area, it looks as though there might be some really good lagoon/intercoastal waterway fishing in this area if I can find a place to park or rent a kayak. I also saw a fishing pier on the south end that I'm planning to check out. 
Question: Is there any public bridge or pier that I might be able to go crabbing from?

I found a Chevron (Chu's) down there that sells fishing supplies and licenses. I might just have to wait to get there and ask them for advice.

I have an ongoing Bing Map project going that I have now updated to include Tybee Beach as well as Hilton Head. If anyone wants to look at it, here's the LINK

Thanks!

-House

p.s. I just found this website that has some great information about fishing Tybee. Link: http://www.tybee.com/fishingancrabbing.html

p.p.s. I also forgot to link the tide charts: 
Link: http://freetidetables.com/sid/2814cef5/uid/7e659087

p.p.p.s. I also found a good forum from a local bait shop that has active fishing reports and members: http://lcf.ipbhost.com/


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## HOUSE

I'm back from Tybee Island and very excited to write this fishing report...

On Thursday, August 4th I headed down to Tybee Island to meet 22 friends in a beach house to celebrate my little sister's birthday. Being an addict of fishing, drinking, and girls, it was quite a conundrum deciding where my loyalties would fall. With only 2 "full" days there, I had originally planned on getting up at 6 every day and getting some fishing until lunch, party on the beach in the afternoon, fish until dinner, and then party again with my friends at night. I found out very quickly that I'm too old for that, lol. 

Here's the full report:
Thursday: Arrived at the beach with 2 Cincinnati friends around 3pm. Found a nice restaurant on the beach, drank some beers, went fishing from 6-9pm. Weather was 98*degrees and cloudy, with a typical beach storm blowing in that looked like it was going to nail us but veered off at the last minute and headed out to sea. We set up 3 saltwater rigs on the north east shore close to the rock jettie and casted out 3 different baits: cut squid, shrimp, and mullet. (We purchased all 3 from Tybee Island Bait & Tackle). We primed 3 saltwater rigs with 4 or 5-ounce weights due to some heavy winds blowing in from tropical storm Emily to the south, size 5 circle hooks, and instantly started hitting fish. It seemed that the squid was the most successful, but mainly because it seemed to stay on the hook better than the shrimp. All of our hooks seemed to be stripped within 5-10 minutes if we didn't hook anything. 
I won the "first-fish" contest with a beautiful Atlantic Ray that measured 25 inches from wing to wing. I normally wouldn't measure a stingray, but this one was missing it's stinger & tail (probably due to some stupid fisherman that previously caught it). I'll post a picture of "Stubs" later in the week.
"First-Shark" went to my friend Adam who pulled out a decent black-tip on his first cast. It was about the same as most of the ones caught up in Hilton Head early this summer, measuring a whopping 21 inches. Our other friend fired back with a drag-peeling monster on his cut mullet, but sadly it broke his line. 
We fished for a total of about 3 hours with a few beer breaks and throws of the football. The wind made it pretty difficult to fish 3 poles close enough together to talk. 2 rigs seemed to work a lot better. Also, we were fighting 4 foot waves at time when the tide started coming in from low tide. I landed a total of 4 black tip reef sharks and 2 rays. My friend Adam added 3 more black tips to the total, and our other friend got skunked but he was having issues with his gear (old line, no anti-reverse, etc) and also didn't know how to play them. (The secret I found was to keep the line above the crashing waves so you could feel the fish hit the bait and then slowly reel it in to set the hook when I felt a pull. My 2 friends usually missed the hits and sat there fishing with an empty hook for 20 minutes.)

Friday was a difficult day to fish. We had stayed out late on Thursday night and I had trouble dragging my friends out to the beach until 10am. We decided that catching little stuff was pretty easy and that we wanted to focus on bigger fish so I spent the first few hours tossing fishfinder rigs out to try and catch bait fish. (I didn't bring my cast net due to limited space and this ended up being a really poor decision.) I finally caught a croaker but my friend dropped it while trying to rig it...total blunder. I caught a second baitfish which I believe was a small pompano and he tossed that out near the jettie and did not have any action on it even though we were watching tons of birds and fish slamming baitfish in the area. After 1 hour went by, he finally had a humongous run but he panicked and tried to set the circle hook and I believe he ripped it right out of the monster's mouth. We fished off and on until 3pm catching 4 more black tip reef sharks and 1 more ray. After 3pm the group started arriving and our fishing time was soon replaced by a huge beach party and no more fishing for the night. I'll save _that _report for another time 

Saturday was an amazing day despite the massive hangover. We hit the beach around 10am and this time we were more focused than ever, all 3 of us trying to impress the girls that had shown up with our fishing prowess. I scored first, hooking into a black tip and quickly handed it off to one of the girls to reel it in, playing it off like I didn't know it was on there. She even dissed my friend Dan for catching a fish before he did which made everyone laugh. My friend Adam and I did this several times while our friend Dan never caught a single fish. That made him so mad that he started to get a little careless with his casts. He saw a school of fish getting hammered by seagulls and tossed a high-arcing squid out into the mess, only to set the hook on a freaking seagull! He reeled it in and I got to play the hero and save the bird, which scored me even more points with the girls and got him so mad that he stopped fishing altogether, lol.

After the seagull incident, I saw the most amazing thing I've ever seen while fishing from the beach. A school of bait fish had been corralled into the jettie by a bunch of monster tarpon and 5-foot fish were jumping out of the water feeding less than 50-100m from shore. Adam and I quickly switched gears and waded out along the jettie enduring more 3+ foot waves and did our best to catch one with limited lures to choose from. The largest lure I had brought was a 5-inch chrome lipless crankbait...I really didn't anticipate this. My buddy threw a large spinner, but after a few casts he got tossed into the jagged rocks and split his knee open and had to go in. (At least he chummed the water for me). I casted to these beasts for nearly an hour without success when finally on a long cast I felt the most powerful thud on the end of a pole that I've ever felt in my life. My drag went screaming and I saw a wake of water shoot right for the jettie that resembled a torpedo or something that I may have seen from Shark Week. I had brand new 60 pound braided line and a 45pound leader (18 inches) and in the blink of an eye, I felt the line snap and my fish was gone. Heart break! but probably the most exhilarating thrill I have ever experienced while fishing from the shore. 

Within the hour, the tarpon were gone as quickly as they had arrived. If I had only brought my cast net to throw some bigger live bait their way! If only I had brought some of my muskie lures! So many things I want to try now...but sadly my vacation is over. One more "lesson learned" out on the water. One more dream to keep my drooling until next summer's trip. You just never know what the ocean is going to throw your way.

Good luck to anyone that is heading to the beach for the rest of the summer!


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## nellison

Nice trip! Next time remember to use the local tackle shop and buy some bigger hooks and etc... It is the ocean you know!


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## nitsud

Sounds like a kickass trip! Even seeing that kind of tarpon feeding frenzy would be memorable, to hook up even better.


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## eatwhatyoukeep

I have been to tybee island, congrats on a great trip.

A top guide in the mosquito lagoon area told me his top bait for tarpon is a plastic bass assasin and the hook was like you would use for bass. He wasn't fishing with heavy gear, 10#


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## Capital outdoorsman

gotta have a lot of line for tarpon. I remember in key west they came in like that. Everyone would cast at them from shore just to see how long they could hold the fight. NO ONE landed one. Longest battle lasted 15 minutes. Sounds like a good time though.


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