Need Some Help

[Glub]

Myrtle Beach.

My buddy is going down there with his family for the week and needs some help. 8-5 to 8- 15.

What is running?

Thanks

[Thumb-Burner]

I read an article on some site (sorry, can't recall where) that said that the flounder were about jumping up on the beach and the piers down there.. old timers were saying it was "like the old days"?

sorry don't have more detail

[Glub]

It turns out now that I'm taking my family down there to. Campsite on the beach with kids.

Thanks

[derf]

which campsite on the beach are you heading to ??
derf

[vasurfisher]

GREGG HOLSHOUSER GRAND STRAND OUTDOORS


Flounder catches freakish


Amazing. Marvelous. Unprecedented. Inexplicable.

Words alone cannot describe the flounder fishing Grand Strand anglers have been enjoying over the past week - one has to see it to believe it.

Beginning a little more than a week ago, fishermen began catching exceptionally large numbers of flounder off piers on the south end of the Myrtle Beach area and by boat in estuaries from Murrells Inlet south to Pawleys Island.

"I haven't seen anything like this," said Kris Reynolds, a natural resources technician with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Office of Fisheries Management. "I've talked to at least 75 old-timers who've fished on the piers for 10 to 40 years and they've all never seen anything like it either."

Reynolds, who regularly checks on recreational saltwater catches along the coast, heard reports of the prolific catches of flounder late last week and immediately investigated.

He found that from last Friday through Monday, anglers fishing on piers from Garden City northward to Second Avenue Pier in Myrtle Beach were catching between 100 and 300 legal-size flounder a day, and maybe more. After Monday, the astounding flounder catches spread as far north as Apache Pier on the north end of Myrtle Beach.

"Normally on a good weekend for a pier they might catch 30 to 40 flounder and that's a good weekend," Reynolds said.

As of Thursday afternoon, flounder were still being landed in numbers way above average.

"I don't know what the phenomenon is - I guess we're just lucky," said Paula Green, owner-manager of The Pier at Garden City on Wednesday.

"It's been an unusual boon for us. [Fishermen] even know about it in North Carolina and they're coming down like crazy."

Anglers have been using live bait, usually mud minnows or finger mullet, to catch the flounder, most of which have been landed close to shore in three to 10 feet of water.

Possible causes

The big question is, what has caused this anomaly?

SCDNR staff members are currently looking into possible explanations:

Prolific spawning: Dean Cain, a Regional Biologist with DNR who works the northern coast of South Carolina out of Georgetown, has a theory on why flounder are so thick close to the beach.

Cain feels there has been excellent recruitment of flounder - the number of young fish that are spawned and actually survive to adulthood - along the coast for the last several years.

"In the last three to five years, the recruitment has been good and it's most likely because of that we're seeing larger numbers of flounder in the area," Cain said.

Also, Cain says, recent heavy rainfall came after a dry, hot spell and cooled the water along the beaches.

"Rain has cooled the water and they're staging off the beaches for their annual fall migration," Cain said. "We have an episode with local weather patterns and recruitment variables that lend itself to congregate the flounder near shore. It shouldn't last long."