On Saturday, July 4th I took a group fishing from Columbus County. They wanted to go out and strictly target grouper, and that sounded good to me. Due to it being the 4th of July I wanted to get a early start of everyone so we left the dock at 5:30 am. It didn’t take long to catch our livewell full of pogies in Lockwood Folly Inlet and we headed the Twister offshore 30+ miles to find some 90 foot water. The wind was blowing around 10 knots out of the North and it made the ride out nice due to the following seas. By 7:30 we were dropping down our first baits and the action was pretty constant for the rest of the morning. By lunch time we had our limit of Scamps and one nice Genuine American Red Snapper. The scamps averaged 12-15 pounds with a few fish bumping the 20 pound mark. Once we had our limit I began trolling dead cigar minnows in hopes of finding a few Mahi or King Mackeral, but the top water fish were not biting for us or anyone else as the radio chatter was suggesting. All in all we had a awesome day and got in time to enjoy some of the 4th of July festivities at the end of Holden Beach.
Capt. Patrick