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so the first week of april one of those days i will be fishing off of a pier in south carolina. i have never fished saltwater before and have no idea what im doing. i was told live or fresh shrimp are good to use for bait, any other bait suggestions? also how shoould i rig my line and what size of hooks and other tackle should i use. what kind of spots/structure? in the water should i be looking to cast to?
Shrimp is good and cut bait sometimes works. I always used a 1/0 or 2/0 hook with a 2-3oz pyramid sinker. I doubt you will see any structure around a fishing pier.
so is it just cast as far as you can as deep as you can? do the fish tend to stay at certain depths or is the depth usually pretty even around piers?
I would suggest rigging the sinker to slide, sort of like a fishfinder or "Carolina" rig. Use just enough weight to hold bottom.
I wouldn't go any larger than a size 1/0 hook - a size 1 might be better. And dead shrimp should be just fine - something in the 31-35 count or thereabouts.
Look for slick spots between the breakers - those will be troughs. The waves break on the shallower bars. The fish are normally in the deeper water between the bars.
I'd imagine that most of the fish you will probably catch will be fairly small. If you happen to latch onto a bull redfish, seek divine guidance! :D
Bon chance.
Pete
if they can bite a shrimp then they arent too small for me. this will be my first time saltwater fishing (acctually second because i will be out with a spottail guide the day or two before) so just catching a saltwater fish will be fun for me.
so i dont know how tall the piers are, but when you catch a fish, how do you land it? really long net? horse it all the way up? or are the piers farly close to the water?
Do a lot of fishing from the piers in Myrtle Beach. Fresh shrimp and fresh cut mullet, spot, pinfish, whatever are my 2 favorite baits. About everything will hit shrimp and the rest will hit the cut bait. Live shrimp is only needed for spotted sea trout and you probably won't get into them from the piers. If you get back in the creeks, toss them under a popping cork with a #1 kahle hook.
I use a 2 hook bottom rig (sold in the pier stores or make your own) with #2 or so kahle hooks, start with a shrimp on one hook and cut bait on the other then switch to whatever they're hitting after you catch a few. For weight, it depends but I use 3 or 4 oz. I'll toss 5 if the current is really strong. Use the lightest you can.
For structure, 2nd Avenue Pier (on 2nd Avenue North in MB) has a lot of rocks fish can relate to, but most of the beach is flat sand. No structure like you think of in freshwater, so fish relate to breaks, troughs, and other "structures" of sand made by the current and waves. What sneakypete said is good advice on where to throw, but on the piers I usually pass by the breakers and go out on the end (where allowed, they're sometimes reserved for king fishing, 2nd Avenue isn't and that's why I usually go there) and toss out as far as I can. Have done great doing this, I've always felt it kind of defeats the point of going on the pier if I'm gonna just fish by the breakers (AKA waves breaking, or rolling over).
You just reel up your fish. If they're something with thin mouths (weakfish, sea trout) you'll often net them up (think 3 foot hoop with netting, with a long rope to haul it up and down). Anything over say 3 pounds you can net then up as well. If it's too big to reel up, net it. Most locals would be happy to or the pier should have multiple nets for use.
Good luck, shoot me a PM if you need any more help.
do the pier stores sell bait or does that need to be bought elsewhere?
Most I've been to do, but I never buy shrimp from them as it's poor quality. Get it from a real seafood place, save what you don't use and eat it. ;)
is there any real difference between the quality of baits? also, what kind of hook would be good? cirlce? octopus? baitholder?
Yes fresh bait will always outfish frozen.
I use #2 kahles usually. I'll use circles for big drum and other large fish.
alright, i'll probably be fishing off the garden city pier either wednesday or friday
alright so i checked out what other people at the pier were doing today and although there was a lot of whiting being caught they were all small, smelt sized (around 5-8 inches). they were all out on the end of the pier using shrimp, i think it was a receding tide. anyway i picked up shrimp and squid strips today and i will be trying the pier on friday. i want to fish the calm spots in the breakers of an incoming tide right?
Them whiting are good eating if they're a bit bigger. I would try by the breakers and if you don't have any action after an hour or so, try out where everyone else is, maybe you'll pick up a few keepers! I was hoping the water temperature would pick up for you but it's still near 58-60.