N - Things to do in the Spring/Summer

New to Charleston A to Z?  Read this first. 

3 crabs caught off of the Pitt Street Bridge.

Noodling – Noodling is when you fish for catfish using your bare hands.  I’m not sure if people noodle in Charleston, but just go with the flow for now, because our next activity deserves to be on the list and I think I can get there from here.  So here we go, I am using noodling as a springboard to send us cannonballing into the Charleston waters, a veritable storehouse of delicacies fit for fryer, steamer, broil, boil, grill, and on occasion au natural.  Okay, I guess this is a pretty roundabout way to introduce fishing, crabbing, and shrimping off the coastal piers, docks and bridges, but I had to fit it in somewhere and I only have Q, U, V, X, and Y left to work with. 

You can catch bigger and better stuff from the comforts of a boat, but for our purposes I’ll stick with the piers, docks and bridges, because they are easily accessible.  I haven’t been fishing or shrimping yet, but I summoned up all of my fond memories of crabbing at sunrise under the trestle with my buddies in Mastic Beach to propel me off to the Pitt Street Bridge for an evening of crabbing.  The Pitt Street Bridge in Old Mount Pleasant once connected Mount Pleasant to Sullivan’s Island and it is a great place to get your crab, jog or dog-walk on.  

So I pulled some chicken from the freezer, packed my flashlight, got a bucket, crab net, forty feet of rope, and some zip ties (to attach the chicken) from Kmart and headed for the bridge.  I know what you’re thinking, “why did he go to Kmart when he could have gone to one of the many local bait & tackle shops?”  Forgive me, I was new to Charleston, my wife had the GPS and I didn’t know how to get anywhere else.  Pleases post your recommendations for the best local places to get the appropriate gear so I don't make anymore mistakes.

When I was a kid we used fishing line and pulled the crab in while another person was ready with the net to scoop it up.  Crabbing alone off the Pitt Street Bridge with a simple circular two ring crab trap was much easier.  The first four times I dropped the line I pulled up keepers, but the mosquitoes were biting hard so I emptied my bucket and headed home early.  I went again when my sister-in-law Bethany and her daughter Avery came for a visit.  Avery and I went out to the bridge early on a Sunday morning.  Every time we pulled up the trap there were four to eight small fish devouring the chicken.  Not so much luck with the crabs though.  Eventually we had three keepers, two blue crabs and one stone crab.  We took them home expecting a nice appetizer portion, but either my preservation method or my cooking method was flawed, because we could not eat them.  A whole lot of build up for nothing.

That’s okay though, it was a good excuse for me to get out early and enjoy a fun morning with my niece.  Who knows, maybe I’ll drop some lines today just for the heck of it.  Be sure to look into the regulations on the South Carolina Department of National Resources website before you go, because you don't want to get a ticket.  What I really want to do is get good at shrimping so I can justify the purchase of a “Shrimpin' Ain't Easy” shirt.

Do you ever get out to the coastal piers, docks or bridges?  Where, when and what do you catch?  Maybe “noodling” is not your thing.  What N activity do you find most exciting during the Charleston spring/summer?