I'm still alive and kicking... I'm sure many of you know, I gave up my guiding a little over 3 years ago to take a job with Shimano. My latest promotion forced me to relocate to Charleston, SC at our Fish Division headquarters. I still travel quite a bit but more often than not, I'm behind a desk heading up a couple of campaigns in the marketing department.

I was recently asked by a CTFer if working in the industry had killed my passion for fishing. The answer is a resolute HELL NO!!! I have had some amazing fishing opportunities in my travels and am getting dialed in locally. I am fortunate to have access to a Skeeter bass boat, Skeeter 24' bay boat and a 32' SeaVee. I will never turn my nose up at bass fishing but as always, my heart is in the salt. We get to p;lay with the latest and greatest and play with lots of prototytpes

The trout and redfish here are outstanding. I try to stick with artificials as much as possible.






Recently, we've been figuring out the grouper bite on jigs here. Everyone here uses bait and we have them scratching their heard every time we pull back into the marina. I have nothing against bait, but there is nothing like getting crushed when vertical jigging with the Butterfly system. We are fishing 140-270 feet lately and have been getting our limits nearly every time out. Mostly scamps and a few big gags with the occasional yellow mouth. They are an absolute blast and delicious!








Down here, you just never know what you're going to run across. We see tons of mahi, blackfin, African pompano and GIANT amberjacks. Just last week, we had an aj that based on length and girth, was roughly 115 pounds Most are on topwaters but they will eat pretty much anything...










Anyways, I'm alive and well. Living the dream down here in SC! I'll make more of an effort to pop in with a report once in awhile and post some pics of what we're catching down here...

Wow. Living large.

Do you recommend any guides in the area? Buddy of mine moved to Murrell's Inlet couple years ago. He's there from October to April give or take a week, and wants to do some salt trips.

Hello Blaine,

We still remember our fishing trip to God's Lake a few years ago. The four of us (you, Buck, my son(Steven) and I thoroughly enjoyed that adventure.
If you recall we had some airline problems trying to return to Connecticut due to the bad weather, but we finally made it!
Plenty of northerns and walleye!

Bruce (earl bird)

I was just asking where's Blain? the other day while fishing with a couple CTFers. some great fishing down there, thanks for the update..

I really miss all your posts, so please keep up the posts from SC! I have been wanting to plan a trip to SC with the family, do some hunting and fishing.

Great stuff Blaine!

Charleston is a beautiful place to land and fish. Good for you. Those amberjacks are outrageous aren't they?!

We know you're busy, but we also know you're out there fishing so throw us a bone here and there with pics and info like the above....awesome!