For live and premium content, sign up for our email newsletter and we'll send reports directly to your inbox
Continuing subscribers will remember Honor Roll subscriber Don McLaurin’s report in the August issue about fishing for redfish and sea trout near his home city of Charleston, South Carolina. Well, another Honor Roll subscriber, Walter Kleckley, has just checked in with a report on the same area, but he used a different, recommendable guide in the Charleston area, Scott Davis. He writes:
“Scott Davis loves fly fishing, and he’s a pleasure to fish with. He knows the area waters well and accesses fishing spots that most do not even attempt to get into. He fishes an 18-foot East Cape Lostman flats skiff, maybe the nicest flats skiff it has been my pleasure to fish out of. It’s perfect for this type of fishing. We were often in no more than six inches of water, and the boat performed brilliantly, although I am sure Scott had a lot to do with that….”
As for the actual fishing, Kleckley goes on to say that he spotted the first fish of the day himself, made a perfect first cast to it and had a take, which resulted in him landing and releasing a nice fish. But after that he didn’t get another take the rest of the morning. “I had plenty of opportunities and what could have been takes, but it just didn’t happen again,” he writes. “I definitely want to give this fishing another shot. I have fished the North and South Carolina coasts for 50 years, the last ten as a fly fisherman, but this was my first opportunity to fish the grass flats around Charleston. I really enjoyed it. To me, this was the best kind of shallow saltwater flyfishing. It was challenging, it kept your interest up, and it was fun even when you weren’t catching a lot of fish. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone who likes shallow water flats fishing from a skiff or wading. This area is closer for many anglers than Florida, the Bahamas, Texas or Mexico.
It’s perfect for a two- or three-day trip, or for a half-day of fishing when you are visiting Charleston for other reasons.”
(Postscript: Kleckley does not give the cost of his guided fishing, so we consulted Davis’s website, which gives the cost of his service as $300 for four hours, $400 for six hours and $500 for eight hours.)