Charleston’s inshore fall run is setting up on schedule, with bait shrimp and finger mullet running heavy in the creeks and gamefish beginning the seasonal shift out of the summer pattern. Water is still on the warm side, but the drop that turns on the fall bite is close enough that the next two weeks are shaping up as one of the year’s better windows on the water.
Redfish are the first fish to move. Young-of-the-year reds are bigger now than they were a month ago, and the schools are getting more aggressive as bait density holds up. Live shrimp and finger mullet are working the inshore water, where reds tend to sit shallow along flats and creek margins. Trout are running a bit deeper on the same baits, and the trout numbers should climb through the month as the water cools and pushes fish back into the mouths of the creeks.
The mullet run is the trigger for the bigger fish. Tarpon in the harbor and along the inlets are keying on schools of mullet as they move, and September is one of the strongest tarpon months of the year here. Bull red drum are also pulling in closer, staging around the jetties and the harbor mouth and along the surf line where the mullet spill out.
Pier and surf fishing shifts into peak shape as daytime temperatures ease. Black drum, whiting, bluefish, and trout are all in the mix off the piers this month, and when the water clears up Spanish mackerel and king mackerel can be worked off the end. Bull reds show up in the surf and off the diamond as well, with the biggest fish tied to the same mullet schools that pull the tarpon in.
The practical read for the month is straightforward. Live bait wins on the flats and around structure, dead or cut mullet works around the jetties and beaches, and tide movement matters more than the calendar day. On the falling tide the bait pushes off the flats and into the deeper holes, and on the incoming the flats fill back up and the reds move onto them to feed.