The river

We live a stones throw from the river, if you throw the stone twice. It's a large river, in places a half mile across, does a lot of meandering and splits itself in two quite a few times. Being a tidal river there are times  when it flows like a freight train through a tunnel, and between tides in seems not to flow at all. Anyway I live about a mile or so from McCallister State Park, outside of Richmond Hill, GA, not far from Savannah, the park has a pier that goes a good 100' into the river. With a yearly pass, I can fish every day if I wish, but I hardly go out to the pier. I have never had any luck on the pier, some small cats, even smaller Croakers and Whitings, and way too many Rays. When the water is really moving the tip of your  pole just bounces up and down, you just have to wait until your pole bend double to do anything. You can crab and shrimp from the pier, but the pier sits high and it can be a 20 foot haul up from the water at low tide.

Having said all this I promised myself I would fish more this year, so I got a yearly pass and will try to go a couple of times a week.

10/12/10-  Went out to the pier @3PM, 80 degrees, clear blue sky, tide going out, water moving at a moderate clip. Tried frozen shrimp, with a hook about 18" off the bottom, a couple of bites which I missed and then a good strong bite and a deep dive, took a couple of minutes to get the fish near the surface, and when a I could make out the shape, it looked very much like a sand shark, and then it jumped, not very shark like. Realizing where I was and with an out going tide, mainly fresh water, it would be strange if it was a shark. Somebody yelled that's a Gar, which it was, and about then he came completely out of the water, and I could see his long snout with rows of teeth, when he splashed back into the water, the line went slack and he was gone. Which was for the best, he was close to 24" counting his elongated mouth, and he would have never made all the way up to the pier and over the railing,a good twenty feet. Fished another 20 minutes, but no action. A man was doing a fair job of crabbing, with 6 nets lined up, when I left he had about 10 Blue crabs and a shrimp or two, which he used as fishing bait.