Beaufort fishing was ‘on fire’ for a few days in August. What caused the frenzy?

Fishing around Beaufort and Port Royal is typically slow in August as the blistering heat warms the water, making fish lethargic. The vacation charter business for boat captains also begins to cool as kids start returning to school.

But over several days earlier this month, “the bite” in the rivers and streams in the Lowcountry salt marshes caught fire, charter boat captains report. Suddenly, clients were reeling in prized local fish like redfish, trout, tarpon, king mackerel and flounder like it was fall — the best fishing time of the year — and posing for photos that showed them grinning ear-to-ear as they displayed their catch.

What caused the brief fishing frenzy in the dog days of summer? Area anglers point to Tropical Storm Debby, the lumbering low pressure system that spit 15 inches of rain onto the Lowcountry over several days beginning the week of Aug. 5.

Although the storm flooded area roads and neighborhoods and blew down trees as it lingered in the Lowcountry, the change in atmospheric pressure and the influx of fresh water into tidal rivers and creeks turned out to be a boon to fishing. However, the window was brief — a few days before the storm arrived and several days after it departed.

“It turned the bite on fire,” said Mike Rentz, a Beaufort-area charter boat captain with Salty Sea Charters , who often stalks “tailing” redfish, whose tail fins stick out of shallow waters, in the tall grasses near the shore.

Rentz, who runs charters on the Beaufort River and across Port Royal Sound, has fished during a couple of previous storms but had less success in catching fish than he did during Debby.

“You are lucky to hit it,” he said. “You really don’t know until you get out and fish.”

Rentz continued to run charters right up through the weekend prior to the Monday arrival of Debby. He routinely saw “20-fish charters” with a few trips when clients caught as many as 35. He wasn’t alone in reporting exceptional catches before and after the storm.

“The bite has been really good,” said Tommy Buskirk of Sea Island Adventures , a Beaufort fishing boat captain who mostly targets redfish, trout, flounder, black drum and occasionally tarpon, the huge “silver kings” he compares to “big buck (deer) hunting” because “you’re not going to get one everyday.”

Guides and charter boat operators are now gearing up for the fall season, which is considered the best fishing of the year in the Beaufort area. The boost in fall fishing coincides with a drop in water temperature.

“We call it the fall bite,” Rentz said. “Everyone’s a charter guide in the fall because everyone can go out and catch a ton of fish. It’s easy to catch fish in the fall.”

Water temperature drop credited

Buskirk and Rentz both credit the drop in water temperature after Debby moved through for the improved fishing.

“I think that storm really cooled the water,” Buskirk said. “It’s like we’re almost approaching fall fishing and that’s one of the best times to be out there. We typically have a big rush coming in September and October of people who want to get out.”

The water temperature, Rentz said, dropped about 6 degrees in the wake of the storm. “Fishing was on fire,” he said.

But for him, the fishing eventually slowed, returning to normal August numbers, he said.

“It was a very short window when fishing was really active,” Rentz said.

Rentz canceled a few trips as result of the Debby but he also had many satisfied customers because of the great fishing before and after the storm. He expects that experience to lead to repeat customers. “They were as happy as can be,” he said.

The first couple of weeks of August are slow anyway because he caters to families and vacation trips slow when kids begin returning to school, says Buskirk, so it was “kind of an ideal time for the storm to come.” The 30-year-old Buskirk works a full-time job as an emergency medical technician but “absolutely loves being a fishing charter captain,” which he considers a second full-time job.

“It’s a sense of freedom you really don’t get anywhere else,” Buskirk says, “and if you look at Beaufort on an aerial map it’s more water than there is land.”

Low pressure improves the bite

A drop in the barometric pressure was credited for the hot fishing in the days preceding the arrival of the storm. Fish tend to be hungry during periods of decreasing or steady pressure, says Rentz.

Capt. Tuck Scott, head guide for Bay Street Outfitters in Beaufort , which focuses on fly fishing, also reported good fishing on “both sides” of the storm.

The influx of rain led to the fish gorging themselves at least for a while, he said.

Higher water temperatures this time of year lower the oxygen content and fish tend to become lethargic, Scott said. On the other hand, Scott said, the warmth also increases their metabolism rate so they need to eat more. The fish tend to gorge during short periods. One of their favorite foods is shrimp . At the time of Debby’s arrival, shrimp of all sizes were all over the water, Scott said. But the fresh water from the storm pushed the shrimp off the flats into deeper water to find heavier salt water. Scott believes that improved the fishing markedly because fish no longer could find an easy meal of shrimp.

“Now they are left, thinking, ‘I gotta eat, so I’m going to eat anything that shows up,” Scott said.

Still seeing ‘a lot of fish’

Fishing has remained “pretty good” since Debby because water temperatures are not quite as hot as they were, Scott said. “We continue to see a lot of fish,” Scott said.

Debby moved into the area on Aug. 5, a Monday, and stuck around for the remainder of the week.

Rentz was forced to reschedule trips planned for Monday, when Debby arrived, and didn’t fish again until Friday afternoon, letting the tide cycle a couple of times because the storm dumped so much freshwater into the area’s saltwater rivers.

After Debby departed on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were “really killer days,” Retz said. He had some “20-fish days,” which is good this time of year, when the normal is more like 8 to 10.

Following the storm, the water was dirty for a few days, which is common after heavy rain hits the pluff mudd, the gooey mud that lines the coast and comprises the floors of Lowcountry salt marshes, Buskirk said. It typically takes a few tide cycles to wash it out. “It did not seem to affect the bite,” Buskirk said.

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