Just Angling for July 8, 2004

By Donald Millus

Shrimp Are Jumping, Mullet, Too

Phil and Rilla Thomas didn’t go to the fireworks at the beach, or even to the fireworks at 10^th Avenue, around the corner from us at the Duncans. Of course, thoughtful patriotism is one of our neighborhood themes, but my wife and I and our guests were more intent on enjoying the evening breezes of the Fourth of July on our screened-in porch.

The shrimp salad that we were enjoying helped, too. Pat had found a new recipe for combining macaroni, celery and other greens with some of the tastiest Murrells Inlet shrimp I had harvested in a long time, a year to be precise.

Just before the full moon last year I took advantage of low tides and a cooling drizzle to throw my cast net for a few hours, including water breaks, in one of the creeks of Murrells Inlet to bring home some six or seven pounds of tender brown shrimp. It was a little warmer last Thursday and I didn’t have as much time to cast net for shrimp because I was meeting a friend for our annual high stakes one-on-one flounder fishing contest.

I didn’t bring Alice with me because it was so hot, but the shrimp were there. I don’t mess with bait, just anchor the boat at half-tide or less and throw in likely looking holes in the creek. Even with some throws landing just a few shrimp, they soon start to fill a pail. Every time I take a water break, I pour the shrimp in a dip net and put them on ice for peak flavor protection.

A big ray came in on one retrieve—of course, I felt the fish and hoped I had lucked into a flounder. A pair of big mullet, 1.5 lbs or better, also came in, and these went into the fish cooler.

I almost stayed too long up the creek and had to get out of it by exiting my 14 foot Duroboat and towing it over a sandbar that had just enough water to help me slide my way to the main creek. I was joined by a gentleman in a center console who was gathering mullet and shrimp to use live for black and red drum.

I trolled opposite Marlin Quay Marina using some live menhaden I had netted until I spotted my guest waving from the dock. At 200 yards I couldn’t tell Richard Lee from any slender fisherman, age 17 to 40, but the waving gave him away. Naturally he was eager to win more money from me. (Quiz for faithful readers: When’s the last time Lee won a fishing bet from me? Answer follows.)

He suggested we go double or nothing on the four bits I owed him from trout fishing last December. We anchored in a creek mouth and fed shrimp, mullet, and menhaden to crabs, another ray, a small sea robin, and baby bluefish. No flounder, but a great afternoon with more than enough shrimp for shrimp cocktails for Pat, me, and my nonagenarian mother-in-law, Irene, for the eve of the Fourth, plus the shrimp and “call it macaroni” salad for a patriotic Fourth.

(I sadly note the passing of one of the great figures of local fishing, R. D. Brigham, on June 26^th. Brigham was either 81 or 82 depending on whether you checked his social security or military records. Like many of our soldiers in World War II, R.D. went to war younger than he told the recruiters. He was a kind and cheerful man and a devoted fisherman. “You can’t catch fish on credit,” was a lesson he had to repeat to me on offshore trips with the late Capt. Buck Kempson, when I reeled up a pair of cleaned hooks. Our condolences to his widow, Tina, and sons Roy, George, and Dean.

Those who remember R. D. from the legendary City Bait and Tackle in Myrtle Beach may want to make a donation to the Walker Brigham Foundation, c/o Conway National Bank, PO Box 320, Conway, SC 29528. Brigham’s great grandson, 2-year old Walker is spiritedly battling cancer.)