A week of collisions with saltwater creatures

Did you by chance read my column last week? I talked about the upcoming October underwater “traffic jam” where fish, shrimp, crabs and just about every other saltwater creature is on the move. Some are heading south, others north, east or west, and collisions are not only possible, but pretty much guaranteed.

With that said, this phenomenon didn’t wait for October. The last week of September was one that I will never forget.

I’ll start with last Sunday morning. I woke before daylight, had a cup of coffee and decided that, since it was such a beautifully quiet morning, I would wet a line for an hour or two. Heading across the bridge to Hilton Head, I decided to check on a friend’s boat at Wexford Plantation and, while there, throw some artificials for trout. I wasn’t fishing inside the harbor but rather on a small dock outside the locks that lets boats into Wexford.

Sitting there daydreaming, I had my feet dangling in the water and grooving on a perfect Lowcountry morning when something brushed against my foot. I will say it startled me out of my daydream and, looking down, two tiny eyes attached to a monster head with porcupine quill-like whiskers stared back at me.

It was a manatee. I see them just about every summer, especially on the north end of Hilton Head, but never in the area where I was.

For nearly an hour, I bonded with this 600-pound gentle giant. Talking softly, I rubbed the scum off it’s back and it loved it so much it would let me take hold of its flipper and roll it over so I could rub its belly.

Talk about being in heaven, it would stick it’s head out of the water when I stopped and blow kisses in my face — though that breath definitely needed a dose of Listerine. But what an encounter to start my week. I ended our face-to-face by videoing our last moments, which I’ve put on my Facebook page. It was awesome!

Two days later, the water bug got me again. Hopping in my little boat, the Marsh Monkey, I simply wanted to clear my mind for an hour or two. It was low tide and, heading toward Daufuskie Island, I came around a corner and saw at least a dozen dolphin fins along the shoreline in water that couldn’t have been more then a couple of feet deep. Nothing unusual about that, but I knew by their back-and-forth movements what was to come. I flipped off the engine and watched.

Sure enough, with the mullet run in full tilt, six of these amazing mammals lined up and with amazingly graceful speed and precision drove a school of mullet up onto the muddy bank. I have seen “strand feeding” more times than I can count, but this time all six were high and dry a good five feet from the water’s edge.

Gorging on the mullet that were flopping on the mud, the dolphins were perfectly aligned, pink bellies showing, in a way I have never seen before. They did it three or four times and, from my vantage point, it was a mass of flesh writhing on dark mud amidst wads of stranded silver mullet flopping. What a way to spend an hour.

As the week progressed, it just kept getting better. I went shrimping near Hilton Head in hopes of getting a dinner’s worth and in one throw pulled in five pounds of these crustaceans. Then a friend, Capt. Kent Bird, is also shrimping and when he pulls in his cast net, there is a huge tiger shrimp. Think of the largest shrimp you have ever seen and quadruple it and that is how big this type of shrimp gets. Some even reach a foot long.

Invasive species from Asia, it seems that every year someone I know lands one. When they first started showing up, many thought they would destroy our local shrimp populations. But as time and research went on, it has been determined they are not as big a threat as first thought. I wonder if Kent split it down the middle, threw it on the grill and dipped it in melted butter, and had himself a one-man feast. I guess I’ll ask him the next time we see each other.

Finally, it looks like the Collin Stokes Memorial Inshore Tournament on Oct. 15 is going to be quite the event. With all proceeds going to the Waddell Mariculture Center, many of you have made sure this event is going to be a great success. Even folks that have no plans to fish in it have sent checks! Others have given prizes that are amazing: An oyster roast for 20 people, a $500 gift certificate to Bass Pro Shops, dinners, tackle and tons of other items.

One auction item that you may want to bid for is a 10,000 square foot home (with a staff of eight) overlooking the Pacific in Costa Rica. It has seven master bedrooms, a giant pool, private beach and 14-passenger van with driver, plus too much more to describe here. It will be auctioned at the weigh-in and, believe me, it is a bargain. The minimum bid is $4,000, with anything above that going to Waddell. Check it out at CostaRicaOceanfrontVilla.com.

This story was originally published October 1, 2016 at 1:19 PM with the headline "A week of collisions with saltwater creatures."