Georgetown, SC Fishing Report & Live Conditions

Georgetown, SC fishing report

Winyah Bay sits at the confluence of the Black, Pee Dee, Sampit, and Waccamaw rivers, and that mix of fresh and salt makes it one of the more interesting estuaries on the South Carolina coast. Striped bass are the marquee fish here, with the best action in late fall through early spring when cooler water pushes them into the bay and up into the river channels. Summer brings fluke working the sandy shoals near the bay mouth, along with bluefish crashing baitfish on the surface. Tautog and black sea bass show up around any hard structure near the inlet, particularly in cooler months. Weakfish and kingfish make seasonal runs through the shallower grass edges when water temps settle in the mid-60s to low 70s.

Fish the moving tide religiously here — stripers and weakfish stack on current breaks where the river channels pinch down or where creek mouths dump into the bay. On the incoming tide, fluke slide up onto sand flats and drop-offs; fish bucktail jigs tipped with Gulp or a strip of fresh mullet along the bottom. For stripers, chunked menhaden fished on the bottom in deeper river bends produces reliably, but live eels or swimbaits worked along riprap and dock pilings at night can be exceptional. Wind out of the northeast tends to dirty the upper bay, so shift toward the cleaner water near the inlet. Tautog want fiddler crabs or green crabs dropped tight to any hard structure — do not work that bait far from the bottom.