When it comes to outdoors hunting and fishing adventures, you tend to remember the toughest ones almost as much as the best ones. That was the case on a family fishing charter in the Atlantic Ocean out of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on June 15 as part of an 11-day trip to the Carolinas.
It’s hard to find shared activities that allow a 20-year-old active woman, a mostly sedentary 66-year-old marketing man and columnist, and an 87-year-old retired phone company gent who walks with a cane, but that’s the beauty of a charter trip. It’s all aboard, and most kids and adults will be fine.
Unless you are my daughter, Kalispell, and the Bonine doesn’t work.
I booked this morning trip with Fish Hook Charters, North Myrtle Beach, because I had such a successful trip with them in June 2023, boating both a huge Spanish mackerel and multiple Atlantic sharpnose sharks (you can only keep one shark, and they are delicious).
I fished alone in 2023, but this time I had my father-in-law, Roger Nitschke, of Oshkosh, and Kali, who was on her first ocean fishing trip. Nitschke was an old salt at this, spending two months a year fishing Gulf of America waters south of Tampa, Florida, out of John’s Pass on the Friendly Fisherman.
Those Florida boats are much larger, but with more anglers, you get less personalized attention than in the Carolinas. We only had six anglers on board this trip, plus deck hand Roger Lemke and Capt. Carson.
Lemke was working hard for us from the time we left the dock (7 a.m.) until we arrived back to shore (noon). He baited our hooks with cut squid, untangled snarled reels, pulled fish up the side of the 46-foot Fish Hook II and swabbed the decks and fish cleaning/baiting area with detergent and a brush when we were done so the boat was ready for the 1 p.m. trip.
Carson was a friendly, young fellow, but the trip to our first stop about 5 miles out between North and South Carolina was the roughest I’ve ever experienced. A front had come through the day before, and the swells were at least 5 feet high, maybe more. We seemed to be going very fast, and the boat bashed and tossed with every wave. I sat up close to the cabin with Nitschke, but some of the swells splashed over the railing, and my right leg was soon drenched.
Kali headed into the cabin, as she was already getting queasy, despite taking two Bonine (I always take one, and they work great for me). I told her she was better off to stay outside the cabin and look at the horizon, but she hates listening to Dad. I soon saw her holding a wastebasket, and she quickly made three contributions.
About the time we stopped for our first attempt, she was looking pretty chipper and said, “I feel better now.” She grabbed a rod and soon everyone was catching sea bass as fast as we could reel them in. Unfortunately, the length limit was 13 inches, and the biggest of the 40-plus fish caught was about a half-inch short. Still, we had a ball catching them sometimes two at a time (one on each of our two hooks).
We made a few more sea bass stops before baiting up with cut bait and heading for shark waters, also on rocky structure.
Lemke put out at least four rods, and we waited for about 20 minutes, then moved to a second spot. One rod finally twitched, and after setting the hook, he handed the saltwater rig to me.
I kept the line tight, reeling as fast as possible. I felt the weight of the shark (Atlantic sharpnoses are smaller than the sharks of movies, and a big one is about 3 feet long), but when the line got close to the boat, it was gone.
Nitschke caught two of the most unusual saltwater fish I’ve ever seen: a lizard fish (long and narrow as the name implies) and a sea robin, which has wing-like fins and even feet to walk on the bottom, the deck hand explained. Both went back to the ocean.
We tipped our deck hand $70, because he had worked hard, and we still had an ocean adventure, although we did have to make a stop at Platt’s Seafood to buy some red snapper and halibut.
If you are looking for a family adventure that won’t break the bank (we paid $122 each), I highly recommend a fishing charter, whether it’s on an ocean or Lake Michigan. A bouncy trip fishing beats a good day working every time.
Ross Bielema is a freelance writer and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.
