New boat, new adventures!

Recently, I have been thinking about a boat that would allow me to fish in open and nearshore waters. While I love my skiff for fishing in the rivers and creeks, it was not designed to fish in the harbor and beyond. Clearly, I needed a second boat.

A larger vessel would enable me to pursue cobia, tarpon and jacks in our near coastal waters. The lure of catching (large) coastal pelagic species was overwhelming. Unable to resist, I purchased a Pathfinder 22-foot bay boat.

The first fishing trip on the new boat was Saturday afternoon. Elliott joined me. We had a friendly competition to see who would catch the first fish on the new boat. Wanting to run the Pathfinder a bit, we decided to start fishing up the Wando near the Highway 41 bridge.

The ride up river was quick and soon we were casting lures (Z-Man TRDs on 1/5-ounce NedLockZ jigs) to a submerged ledge in about 15 feet of water. On my second cast, I felt a solid thump but somehow managed to miss the fish. I expected Elliott to quickly cast where I missed the bite (like he usually does). However, he did not. I looked back and he was just standing there waiting. He said, “You should catch the first fish.” So, I cast back to the ledge and boom, fish on!

It was not a particularly large redfish, but we were pretty excited. Elliott took a few pictures to commemorate the first fish caught on the new boat. As I was releasing the redfish, Elliott picked up his rod and cast to the ledge. He immediately hooked a trout. For the next 20 minutes, we caught a fish on nearly every cast. The fish were still biting when we decided to leave and run the Pathfinder down river into the harbor. We were smiling the whole way.

Contact Captain Greg Peralta at captgregp@gmail.com or call (843) 224-0099.