 This week on the Sportsman Experience. Jim is joined by his good buddy Alex on some of their home waters in Charleston, South Carolina They're taking out the all-new Masters 247 in hopes that this beautiful bay boat can get them shallow enough to target some winter schools of red fish I got him. I got him. Alex 2, Jim 1. Just so everyone's clear. Kiss him. Pretty little fish, we got tail. Where's the next spot, Jim? Well, they're trying to go up here. I got a roofing catfish hole. Good job catching those last two fish, buddy. Yeah, man, they're taking out them thoroughly. Fishing is a lifelong passion. The pursuit of new species and lifelong memories is why we are up before dawn and coming home salty in the evening. My name's Jim Isaac, lifelong fisherman, boat builder and student of the water. Join us as we bring along family and friends to pursue new waters, learn new methods and enjoy our time together outdoors. Welcome to the Sportsman Experience. I'm always early. I better get some practice casts in before Jim gets here. I just hooked the bush. Oh, there's Jim. Better late than never. Oh, here there, Jim. I was a little early. I thought I'd get a couple practice casts in before we head on out. Yeah, you're going to need it today. Yeah, let's go ahead and get everything loaded up so we can get going. Let's get it done. All right. Fish catching yet? Do you got anything else in the back of the truck? No, we're good to go. Okay. A beautiful morning. Go catch some winter reds. It is a nice cold morning. Oh, you're free. You good? All right, give me a little pop back when we get to go. All right, let's do some fishing. Absolutely beautiful. Low country morning. The boats in the water and the boys are headed down the iconic Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant. Shem Creek is known for its history in the shrimping industry. Full of shrimp boats to this day, it's the local spot for the freshest seafood in town. Growing up, I mean, this is like our home base. You know, I grew up, my parents' house is probably a block that way. We've always just, we've always come out of Shem Creek. My grandparents had a shrimp boat in Shem Creek. We, you know, commercial fish got at Shem Creek. It's just been such a great access point to get to all the fishing grounds that you need to. It's grown a lot. Back in the day, this whole creek was wall-to-wall shrimp boats. I mean, from the bridge all the way out, it was, you know, three deep shrimp boats. It's kind of, the demographics kind of change a little bit. These guys kind of get hit with hard times. But I mean, there's still a few of them pushing along out here. Hopefully they don't go away and they kind of, you know, keep that lifestyle going. You know, kind of what makes Charleston great is the amount of shrimp that we have in here, crab, you know, mud minnows, mullet, things like that, the bait fish that the bigger game fish go after. Yeah, it's definitely a great extra to wear. That's what makes Charleston great. It's just all the amount of bonus of bait that we have in here that stays in here. It's low-country living, man. It's like right now we're going to try to target just structure, just to try to find some of those schools, because they'll just sit on one dock. It'll be, you know, 50, 100 fish. It might be 30 fish, but you should never know. You kind of bounce around there by the first couple casts. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Today we're fishing on our brand new Masters 247. This is a newly redesigned boat for this year. We've got a nice large casting deck on it. We've got the newly integrated D tubing with the glass windshield enclosure. We've got the nice premium seats on this boat. And then also we have the large rear casting deck with the twin aquarium live wells. And once again, this is our new 2022 247 best-selling bay boat in the market. Great family boat, great fishing boat, all around just a great platform. Inshore, near shore, sand bar, you can do it all. So part of the goal today is getting out out into the water, show my buddy Alex, you know, some of the area that I grew up fishing, a lot of areas around Charleston. Alex loves to fish. He just doesn't get to get out there as much as I do. I was able to grow up here, grow up on the water, you know, whether it's fishing on sport fishing boats or fishing in the creek in the John boat, we kind of did it all growing up. So it's nice to be able to bring somebody like him out here and, you know, hopefully we can catch a few nice fish along the way. It's like a bar, two hours away from the old village. We had neighbors that let us come down here and fish. You know, every summer I'd stay with my grandma and it's like our thing. During the day, we just go down to the dock and we fish. That's all we did. Yeah, this fish is my whole life. And like we'd go down there and we'd catch like, fishing, or a red fish, or a trout or whatever. We'd bring them back like my grandfather would always, you know, she'd fry them up. We'd fry fish for lunch like every day. So it's a crab pond sound. Oh yeah, we do crab it, shrimp it. I mean, we did the whole deal. Sunrise on the water is a great sunrise. That's a good day right there. It's a good beginning to the day. We can't beat that. All right, now try making a cast. Just kind of right off that little grass patch that sits there. While you're working on your casting this morning, give it a little other whack. They're probably pushed up against the shell rake if they have to be. Zing it. Let me get up there, heave one in there real quick. Heave one in there. There you go. Try to blow one out. Yeah, probably blow them out if they were in there. Usually, I mean, that water can't be that deep right there. Usually you can kind of blur the school and they'll hang out and just kind of get trapped in that little cove. But this time of year, you just got to keep moving around. Moving around until you find them. That's what it's all about. People get hung up on one spot. It's just running good. A little small bait fish. Kind of spread out. Not very dense. Typically this time of year, that's what you get. Just keep moving. Different sections. Different squares. Sometimes you find them in front. Sometimes you find them in the back. You never know. A lot of times you'll get some black drum in between. They'll usually take it and just roll with it too once they have it. They don't peck around with it. No. They'll pick it up and just start. I always kind of just let them run and then just kind of give them an easy pull back. Let them really kind of take it in. Yeah. Well, that's what it's great about fishing. It's all about just different tactics until you find something that sticks. Fish move around so much. They'll hold into like certain little, like, you find a little gully or something like that. I mean, you can get them to hold in there. You got to get real skinny to get into a lot of the spots. That's the problem. This is the fish of the morning. See, no further back. No further back. They go redfish. He's not cooperating. I got you, my partner. They're a little stout sucker. He's got some wipers on them, yeah. Let them play around a little bit. Usually these guys in the winter are pretty feisty. He hit it pretty hard. He ate it. Ron, don't overdo it. Just kind of play with them a little bit. See that net? Right in the corner. Just where you want it. Nice. Awesome job, my friend. Down the deck. There's the first one of the morning. Fish. Nice, healthy fish. They have that black spot on the tail because it mimics the way their eye looks on their front of their body so when they get attacked from behind, the fish has a chance to swim and get away. The predator misses the fish, the body of the fish, nice, healthy release. He's off. There we go. Good way to start the morning. It's a cold morning so far here on the water but things are starting to heat up. Jim got himself a stud of a redfish to start the morning and this has the boys excited in hopes of some more big redfish and maybe even some other good inshore species. He said that's slow food. He pecked at that one for good. That's probably maybe the same one you had before that you're like something's tinkering. That's fishy. Just let him eat it. Little puppy. Still counts. Little juvenile. They have a nice color, the small ones do. Pretty fish. I had the hues with the one that was pecking at it for five minutes and finally decided to eat it. Little blue hue on his tail. The blue hue. All that casting paid off, huh? Finally did. That's a hole. That's right. Swim another day. Let's get back after it. Little puppy. Are you ready to move? For the next location? Let's get one more cast and we'll pull him in. Franchi hauls out like the nine-pounder from under the big dock. Where's the next spot, Jim? We're going to try to go up here. I've got a real good catfish hole. We're going to go down the creek here a little bit and head up the waterway. We're going to look for some different structure. Pulled a couple fish off of that one. I think we can find some more. Stick to this kind of running gun strategy and just make some moves. Wait on that tide to start flowing out a little bit. Yeah, for sure. It's definitely a slack tide today which is kind of weird but we'll see some more guys popping their head out here down the waterway. Yeah, we're just kind of sticking the plan and moving around. Sounds good. Let's go. The boys they've had a good start to this cold winter morning in the low country. With a couple of nice fish on the boat they're headed out to a new spot in hopes that it will bring some more action to their morning. It's tough just because we haven't been fishing in months. You know, if you fish every day you can come out here and bang on them but the guides obviously have an advantage because they're out here every day and they feel out where the fish are and they know where their schools are. I feel like in the summertime when you get a lot more bait moving and all it's easier because it's just fish everywhere it seems like. Yeah, it's just tough. The ups and downs of the temperatures fish are just more congregated. They're not really spread out. I mean earlier in the year you can kind of go anywhere bumping into some trout. This time of year the red fish are just kind of they're not as widespread as they are in the summertime. You just got to find little areas that will hold them. Yeah, this is kind of our setup we're using right here. Trying to switch it up, try to catch the little trout. Basically we're using a popping cork probably 18 to 36 inch leader on there 20 pound leader. You can get a little bit lighter than that. It's DOA shrimp. Basically it's supposed to mimic like feeding fish just slowly kind of popping it back to the boat. Get the fish to come up and we'll see if it works. It's kind of tough right now but we're trying it out. Covering some ground just kind of trolling down this bank and just working the grass line. Got to keep changing up locations different tactics bait blue worse things like that eventually you'll get on. You just kind of keep on troking don't give up. Any day outside is a good day so it's okay if it's slow. After trying spot after spot the boys are seeing the true difficulty of wintertime fishing. At times it can be very rewarding and others can be very humbling. The small tide swings have water moving slowly and the cold temps have the fish push down. Though it's been rough since their few fish early on they're not giving up just yet. Alex is taking full advantage of the natural structure and the ample amount of rod holders on the boat. I'm just trying to double up my chances to beat you you know. We're all tied right now. One fish for peace. Yeah we gotta step it up man. As we're talking all that smack I'm back here running two lines can't handle one line. That's how I guess sometimes managing two rods is twice the work. Alright Jim see if we can't pull something out of here. Sure it's nice big red fish just hanging out underneath there. Just ripping shrimp. Just ripping shrimp or a big black drum. There you go. Bring them away from that stump. Yeah there you go. Right when you did that I hung up on one. Little puppy drum. There you go. Little bit bigger than the last one but it's got a nice dark blue tail. Pretty pretty pretty red fish. Little one he'll grow up to be bigger. Kiss him. That was sweet. He's sweet on him. That's how he'll grow up to be bigger. He'll grow up to be like a nine pounder. He's smooth loose. Very nice. Slowly picking at him. Alex two Jim won. Just saw a lunch break. Nobody's keeping count. It's on now. Now he's all feisty on the back of the boat. Now it's on. He can get rigged up and catch another one. I love that color. Pretty little fish. Look at that tail. Purple blue. Beautiful little gold color he's got going on. Where's your daddy little fella? There you go. Perfection. Good job catching those last two fish. Yeah man there you go. Picking at him slowly. Sometimes that's what you gotta do. Slow and steady. After these last few fish their luck started to run out. Winter fishing most of the time is more about taking advantage of a nice day. Getting on the water and less about the fish as they're much harder to find this time of year. Wrap it up for the day. Fish have been kind of slow. Not much current so the bite wasn't really there. We picked out them. We got a few fish. I think we're going to take the boats back and get them cleaned up. Maybe go get something to eat and get a couple drinks and just call it a day. Get on them next time. Next week on the Sportsman Experience Jim is mixing things up and testing out his skills as a middle school fishing coach. He's joined by Redfish. He'll be fishing the Brody Bates Youth Redfish Open here in Charleston, South Carolina. See, he's got that good fishing flow. That's what I work for. I'm trying. I'm trying to bring my fishing flow back for the summer. Baby flounder. Yes, it was a flounder bite. Look at that big old minnow.