Jekyll Island and Seining

• Sep 17, 2017

• #1

WalkinDead

Banned

Wife and I went to Jekyll Island today to check out the North beach and St. Andrews beach at low tide.
St. Andrews appears to have lost 12" to 18" of sand over the entire beach area. There is no large debris on the beach and it looks to be seine-able; however, you will have to go much farther from shore now and wait longer after high tide to begin as the sand from the beach made the beach shallower farther from the shore.
The North beach, by the pier, appears to be in good shape also with a great deal of marsh grass from the high tide line inland. The beach should be seine-able; there does not appear to be any obstacles there either; and it does not appear to have lost as much sand.
The coast still appears to be getting some storm surge, as the tides are still much higher than normal and you should plan accordingly.
We may give it a try sometime this week to find out how it affected the shrimp.

 

• Sep 18, 2017

• #2

GONoob

Senior Member

Thanks for the update! We wanted to go this weekend but thinking about holding off

 

• Sep 19, 2017

• #3

WalkinDead

Banned

Update

Wife and I loaded up the poles and net and headed to Jekyll's St. Andrews beach for a couple of hours seining before high tide today. Water is stained, lots of silt floating in it, some small debris in the water, not much.
We made four pulls of about 120 yards each and ended up with approximately 30 quarts of heads on shrimp. Size ranged from small to large with mostly bigger shrimp. Think we did fairly well for daylight seining with the water temperature around 81 degrees on a sunny day.
Will give water a little more time to clear up and go back to seining at night next week when the tides are lower.

 

• Sep 20, 2017

• #4

Q

Quailbriar

Member

When you say St Andrews beach .... Do you mean where the old shrimp boat sticks up out of the sand?? Or do you mean where the park is on the southwest end of the island where the sculpture of the Wander slave ship is? I have a net but have been unsure where to try it. Thanks

 

• Sep 20, 2017

• #5

Rhodes

Senior Member

30 qts in four pulls! Man that's great seining walking dead, even for night seining. Just curious what your heads on count per lb is for small, medium, and large shrimp.

 

• Sep 21, 2017

• #6

WalkinDead

Banned

St. Andrews beach is where the sculpture used to be, gone since the storm. The area with the old wreck is Jekyll Point.
This time of year I would be disappointed if I couldn't fill a cooler within 3-4 hours at night. You wont do quite as well during sunny days, but that will change once the water begins cooling off in October. As with fishing, some days are better than others. Having the beach all to yourself helps a lot. You will also do better on the outgoing tide there as well.
As far as size goes, we had 4 quarts of small tails, which we use for bait, the rest were medium to large with a few bigger ones. The are molting every two weeks now and will grow rapidly.
Going to give it till the beginning of the week to go back so the beach is a lot cleaner. We were picking up some small storm debris (leaves and such) with each pull.
Before the storm we were filling our cooler within 4 hours or so, at night, during the week, and had the beach to ourselves. Just the way I like it.
The week before the storm we went 4 nights and caught ~200 lbs, heads on. The shrimp are there, they just need to grow a bit more.

 

• Sep 22, 2017

• #7

L

Ladder Man

Member

Went last night and it was slow. It was super hard to find space to land the net now that the tide comes up so much faster with the shallow water.

 

• Sep 22, 2017

• #8

WalkinDead

Banned

We are still getting some storm surge, the tides are still higher than normal by a foot or more. We can probably expect that till Maria passes and dies. The hurricane season still has another two months, it may not be over yet.
The shrimping will continue to improve as the water cools over the next two months and the shrimp are growing rapidly now. It can only get better.

 

• Sep 22, 2017

• #9

caughtinarut

Senior Member

Thanks for the update!

 

• Sep 25, 2017

• #10

WalkinDead

Banned

Update

Wife and I went to St. Andrews yesterday evening to seine the incoming tide. We filled a 50qt. cooler by 10:15. The size was a better overall average, but we had to pick them out of a 5" roll of detritus (bits and pieces of marsh grass, leaves, twigs, etc.) on the first three pulls. After that that we had pretty much scrapped the bottom clean and it went much faster. Dolphins were there, but no mullet; they left us alone and eventually left. We also caught one 18" red to add to the evenings catch. There was a good breeze, no bugs to deal with; it was a pleasant evening. Shared the beach with two other crews with shorter nets. Bid them good seining and headed to the house.

 

• Sep 26, 2017

• #11

caughtinarut

Senior Member

sounds good

 

• Sep 27, 2017

• #12

WalkinDead

Banned

Update

Wife and I went to St. Andrews last night. The beach is much cleaner that it has been and the shrimp are there. We made 4 pulls and went home with a full cooler.

 

• Sep 27, 2017

• #13

6

61BelAir

Senior Member

Lots of questions from myself and several co-workers here in the middle of the state:

So what would a few ole boys need to drive over and give this a shot?
What type of licenses, regulations, etc. ?
Equipment (net, etc. and where to buy) ?
How far out from the beach?
Are ya'll pulling the seins with boat(s) or doing it by hand?
(Only time I've used a sein was by hand in water up to chest deep during pond draining.....man what fun!!!! Of course the only worries were cutting your foot on something or stepping on a snapping turtle.)

Thank you in advance for any tips for beginners.

 

• Sep 27, 2017

• #14

WalkinDead

Banned

Sent you a PM.

 

• Sep 29, 2017

• #15

B

BigDave2000

Member

I got the same questions

WalkingDead,
Can I get the same PM? My questions also include how to take the head off and devein?
I plan to take the family to Jekyll Island on the 14th to try beach seining.

David

 

• Sep 29, 2017

• #16

caughtinarut

Senior Member

I need to get over there.

 

• Sep 30, 2017

• #17

WalkinDead

Banned

PM sent.

 

• Oct 1, 2017

• #18

WalkinDead

Banned

Update

Wife and I wanted to get one more day of shrimping before the high winds and tides this week. Had to share the beach with several other nets, but still managed to fill the cooler. The average size was a bit better, the beach was clean, and the bugs left us alone. There were more blue crabs than we have been catching, some finger mullet, no problems with the dolphins. The day was overcast, which brought the shrimp in a bit closer to the shore.

 

• Oct 4, 2017

• #19

B

BigDave2000

Member

High Tides?

How will the tides affect the shrimp? My plans have changed and we are going this weekend.

 

• Oct 4, 2017

• #20

fuelman1

Senior Member

BigDave2000 said:

How will the tides affect the shrimp? My plans have changed and we are going this weekend.

Click to expand...

Right now there are rip current advisories. This weekend could be up in the air depending on what happens with the tropical system developing. They seem pretty certain it will move into the gulf. How far east it travels will determine conditions this weekend.