A Day in the Life of Fishing Charter Captain Crystal Coble
When the weather cooperates, weekends in Murrells Inlet are tailor-made for fishermen who flock from around the country and the region to get a line in the water. As many as 40 fishing charters can operate simultaneously out of the inlet on each of these fair-weather Saturdays and Sundays. The captains and first mates stand at the ready with a flotilla of boats. From smaller center console boats (for two to four guests) up to larger off-shore boats with flying bridges and a head (bathroom), they’re ready to satisfy the angling urges of young and old in anticipation of a bountiful harvest of the sea—or at least to spend a few hours getting salty.
Captain Crystal Coble of Reel Salty, a 13-year-old charter company owned and operated by Coble and her husband, Tyler, gave us some insider information on the vast and interconnected charter business. She also gave us insight into why and how the couple chose this ancient and venerable trade and the path that led Captain Crystal into this unusual profession.
By the time I joined Coble on a recent hot afternoon, she and her 20-year-old First Mate Jaylen Tinsley had just welcomed aboard two customers, Debbie Helms and Lewis Huskey. It would be the second charter of the day for Reel Salty, which was not unusual. Their day typically starts before sunrise, around 5:30 a.m. and involves getting ice and bait, gassing up the boat and preparing for an 8-to-10-hour day fishing.
I was late, missing my 12:30 arrival promise because of unusually heavy traffic and a motorcycle accident. Captain, crew and customers were very forgiving as I apologized and stepped aboard. After a safety briefing, we were slowly underway at idle speed, leaving the dock behind J. Peters Grill & Bar on the Murrells Inlet Marsh Walk. It’s a warm day, and the no-seeums and gnats are circling us in the still, humid air. Five minutes out and just past the no-wake zone, we got our relief.
“Better sit. We’re going to plane,” instructs Capt. Crystal over the steady purr of the twin 150-horsepower outboard motors. “Planing” is when the boat will speed to nearly full throttle, pop up out of the water and make haste. We’re on our way out of the narrow creeks to more open water, eyes on a favorite flounder spot.
We are aboard Reel Salty, a 24-foot, center console Key West, a seaworthy craft ideally suited for in-shore and near-shore fishing. Inshore fishing is generally considered anywhere inside the rock jetties of Murrells Inlet, up to a few miles out into the Atlantic. Nearshore fishing can be several miles out on the open water, up to 10 miles out, but still relatively close to shore. Do some charters go further? Absolutely.
The Gulf Stream, which runs between 40 and 100 miles wide, is a river of warm aquamarine blue water in the Atlantic Ocean. It flows south-to-north from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the U.K. Though it meanders, it rarely ever gets closer than 60 miles east of Murrells Inlet. It’s a favorite (and expensive) destination for all-day anglers looking for blackfin tuna, mahi-mahi, and wahoo. Along with trophy fish, including sailfish, blue marlin, and many others, the variety and abundance of fish in the Gulf Stream make a tempting and tasty target. Capt. Crystal has led many charters in, near and offshore for some 13 years. The day before our trip she’d been out some 10 miles in less-than-ideal conditions.
“The ocean was pretty roll-y yesterday,” she remarked matter-of-factly. She had led a near-shore charter in the open waters where mackerel, grouper, and other big sportfish live and the swells can make for a “roll-y” and perfectly safe, if not uncomfortable, wild ride. They bounced around but came back happy with a “boat full of fish.” Cobia, Grouper, Black Drum, and Redfish.
“You can’t go offshore every day,” says Capt. Crystal, “but these in-shore trips make a great alternative when it’s too rough out there.”
Inshore opportunities, in nearly always much calmer water, also promise a variety of possible catches. The favorite, though, is flounder, which seems to be abundant, but still must be fished within legal limits; no smaller than 16 inches tail-to-snout, five flounder per day per person with a daily boat limit of 10 in total.
Fuel is the single biggest factor on the pricing of charters. Reel Salty’s charters start at $400 for two people, with a $25 surcharge per each additional fisherman. The prices go up for longer trips whether in-shore or near-shore. Tips are customary, especially as the captain and mate will filet your catch at the end of the day. They suggest packing a cooler of ice to leave in your car, ready to take home your fresh catch and keep it cold in transit.
Additionally, Reel Salty offers a two-hour sunset cruise for up to six people for $250 (an affordable $42 per person if you find five friends to join you). Today’s cruise is a three-hour inshore afternoon cruise, advertised at $400. These listed rates assume fuel prices don’t go wonky in the future.
Could you buy fresh flounder at the seafood shack cheaper? Cheaper, yes, fresher (than catching your own?) no. And coming home with fillets ready to cook, from fish you yourself caught, is way more fun.
Capt. Coble and Mate Jaylen slowed the boat nearing our first stop. With engines off, an ingenious battery-powered GPS-driven anchor/trolling motor is deployed manually and drops down from the bow of the boat. In addition to providing slow, quiet trolling, its primary function is to keep the craft within four-to-five feet of where the Capt. wants it based on a GPS pin drop—no anchor required.
With our boat silently treading water, Captain and Mate prepare the rods. Everybody fishes today, as there’s plenty of room. The two customers, Debbie and Lewis, along with Capt. Crystal and Mate Jaylan soon have lines in the water with a simple rig, a small weight on a lead-line and a live mud-minnow attached at the mouth. Flounder hang out at the bottom of muddy flats and are ambush predators.
“Flounder love mud minnows and live shrimp,” explains Capt. Crystal. “We sometimes use artificial baits, too. Whatever they’re hitting that day.”
A successful charter requires a delicate balance, a special dance, moving the boat from spot to spot, trying different baits, fishing at different times of the day, listening to the radio reports of other charter captains in the vicinity, etc. The goal is, of course, to bring fish back to the dock. It doesn’t always happen, but getting “skunked” is uncommon, though it’s an unspoken fear on every charter. So far our first ten minutes are uneventful with nary a nibble.
The day is overcast, a blessing as it keeps the sun and heat at tolerable levels. A bit of breeze blows the boat around but keeps us cool and helps with the gnats. The electric motor never stops making micro-adjustments, which keeps us generally stationary.
We’re not the only charters looking for flounder that afternoon, and several private boats are in the process of coming or going from the popular and well-known spot. In the distance, the Claw House, Dead Dog Saloon and other restaurants stand as a prominent part of the Marsh Walk skyline.
We pass an oyster barge, not terribly uncommon to see in the lnlet. A ton or two of oyster shells sit on the small barge, about the size of a pontoon boat. The shells represent countless meals, raw, steamed, shucked, and each touched by a human hand over the previous month or so. Two workers on board pilot the barge, getting snug beside a weed bank in the fingers of the creek. They fire up a large water pump, which sucks in water from below the boat and blasts it out of a high-pressure fire hose. They unleash the water jet blasting the mountain of oyster shells back to the sea where they will provide habitat for new generations of oysters, a beloved seafood treat enjoyed everywhere along the Grand Strand. If one knows where to look, closer to Pawleys Island and Litchfield Beach, massive shell mounds (middens) dot the marshes and creeks and date back to indigenous prehistoric peoples, primarily the Waccamaw. These centuries-old shell mounds are a reminder of the importance of oysters to coastal people—and tourists—throughout history.
The day lazes on, country music plays over the boat’s sound system, the fish don’t bite, but Lewis Huskey, ever the optimist, has a plan. This is not his first rodeo.
“We need to bet a quarter on the first fish, most fish, biggest fish, and last fish of the day. Who’s in?” All agree. “Let’s make the biggest fish a $5 fish?” Debbie Helms confirms her friend’s modus operandi.
“He always does this,” she says, smiling and shaking her head. “Don’t get sucked in.”
The two are each other’s work spouses from Duke Energy, having worked together for decades. Huskey is retired, and Helms has a few years left, she hopes. They live in the Upstate with their respective families and visit the South Strand every April, May and September. Helms and Huskey leave their actual spouses, who have no interest in fishing, back on shore. All, however, enjoy the fresh fish dinners provided every time these fishermen partner up. This is their pattern three times per year, five weeks in total, and the pair exclusively book with Reel Salty.
“Capt. Crystal is the best,” says Huskey in all sincerity. “This is maybe our seventh or eighth trip with her.”
“I wouldn’t go out with anyone else,” adds Helms, who, along with Huskey is loyal to the captain, and not the particular fishing charter she may be working for at the time. “We always catch fish.”
While that may be true, this first fishing hole is a bust, so on to site two. Poles are brought back into the boat, trolling motor brought up, and Mate Jaylen takes us three minutes away to try our luck at another beloved flounder hole.
On the way over, a particularly chatty local charter captain calls Reel Salty via VHF marine radio, checking on their progress. Charter captains will regularly ask for and share information, and this day is no exception.
“Anything?” he asks, finally. Capt. Crystal answers him honestly and the conversation is over. Temporarily. He will call five or six additional times before the three-hour charter is over. Capt. Crystal likes this particular captain, but there are a few (out of some 30 - 40) who get on everybody’s nerves. Most captains will gladly share over the radio weather concerns, where the hot holes are, what baits are working and commentary on the general fishing conditions. But will they share their successes in real-time?
“Usually we will,” says Capt. Crystal, with a sly smile. “Unless we don’t like you. Then we lie.” The reality is that most all the local captains know each other and help each other. Most are super freelancers, bouncing around, working for whoever needs a captain that day and is available. Capt. Crystal and her husband Tyler own Reel Salty, but they both work for competitive charters when the opportunity arises, which Coble says is “all the time.”
No Bananas Allowed
When the fishing is slow, the chit chat picks up. We learn about the sometimes overlooked, but all too real, prohibition of bananas on board any boat, except ironically, cruise ships, and look at all the problems they have.
“It dates way back,” says Capt. Crystal. “I think maybe because bananas carried poisonous spiders with them on cargo ships a long time ago and they would cause a lot of death and disease.”
Crystal’s premise is one of many theories of the ban that dates back to the 1700’s. Other ideas of the prohibition’s origins include problems caused by banana’s ethylene gas, which accelerates spoilage of anything in the vicinity. The bananas could have spoiled food stores aboard the ships, sickening the sailors onboard. Also, rotting fruit ferments and turns to alcohol and becomes flammable and explosive. Old fruit in the dank ship’s stores caused fires, explosions, and sinkings on many occasions, and the banana was blamed.
The banana conversation was joyfully interrupted with the two words everyone on every fishing charter wants to hear.
“Fish on!” yelled Mate Jaylan.
His was the first of the day, a flounder and a keeper at 16.5 inches. All the keepers, even the fish caught by the captain or mate, go with the customers at the end of the day, another reason for the practice of having more than two rods operating when there’s room for four.
Jaylan throws his catch in the boat’s fish hold just before the next shout is heard.
“Fish on!” This time it’s Capt. Crystal’s fish, another keeper at 17-inches. “Sorry you guys,” she says sheepishly, clearly wishing the paying customers would start catching fish, and soon they did.
Huskey’s was the next catch, another flounder, but it’s undersized and released back into the water. He looks sad, almost devastated. It’s an act.
“There was a quarter on the smallest fish, right?” he asks in earnest. Before anyone could protest, it’s Debbie Helms’ turn.
“Got one!” she yells. This one is more a fighter than the previous, and Mate Jaylan scurries to get a net underneath the big flounder as Helms hauls it on board to hoots and hollers. Even Huskey swallowed his pride and praised her skills. When the fish stops flapping, it’s given a measure, 18.5 inches. The biggest so far today.
The biting stops (even the gnats stopped momentarily) and it’s time to gaze wistfully out over the beautiful Inlet. It’s easy to get lost in the softly swaying sea grasses, sea birds floating in midair, and happy fishermen, a scene worthy of a painting. The old cliché “a bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work,” holds true, as being immersed in nature is healing. For Captain Crystal and Mate Jaylan, they live both sides of the saying, able to make their vocations something so many enjoy and get to do so in the midst of such raw beauty.
“This is a different pace,” reflects Capt. Crystal. “I started in county law enforcement in upstate South Carolina at 17 years old. I later joined the State Troopers and did that for four years, went back to the sheriff’s department and stayed in [law enforcement] in one form or another for 18 years.”
We’re again on the move. Each Captain has their favorite spots, which are still widely known, but we’re not overcrowded this Friday afternoon. We’re closer to shore now in creeks you can only safely access at hightide. We are south of the Marsh Walk, closer to the Hot Fish Club and Morse Park Landing.
Morse Park Landing is famous as a boat launch and small waterfront park. It’s also the home of a Lost at Sea memorial. Etched in the black granite are more than 30 names of local sailors, shrimpers, fishermen, and even a few rescue pilots who didn’t survive what would be their last journey to the sea. Rogue waves, storms, sinkings, fires and more are all hazards of working on the sea and the memorial is a sobering reminder of the danger and tragic loss.
“Looky there!” cries Huskey, pointing toward the back of the boat. Mate Jaylan has quietly, without any fanfare landed another flounder. This one was not a keeper.
Just as quickly, Capt. Crystal lands another, her third.
“Most fish,” she says, checking in with Huskey to make sure he knew and to get the math ready. There could be seventy-five cents on the line. It’s undersized and goes back to the deep.
“It don’t count,” he grumbles.
Our chatty charter captain from earlier has radioed back. Capt. Crystal gives him our location and lets him know how we’re doing.
“Yeah, got three in the box and three shorts,” she says. “It comes in waves.” We’re answered with a “10-4” and come to find out we’re doing better than most of the charters out that day. Still, a keeper has eluded the long-suffering Mr. Huskey, but not for long.
“Well, I think I got one,” says Huskey, both relief and excitement in his voice. As he worked the fish closer to the boat, Mate Jaylan was at the ready with the net. It’s a keeper this time, but not quite as big as Helms’ so the challenge continues.
Closer to shore, we’re given an up-close-and-personal view of a handful of the magnificent creek houses, which is to say the little 10,000- to 15,000 sq ft homes and price tags in the high multi-million dollar range. Still, there are smaller, much older homes, just as charming, that “normal” people might live in. These wide, cypress-planked cottages, handed down through generations, and having endured countless storms, are hundred-year-old survivors whose walls can and do speak.
The fishing has slowed again, though one more keeper was landed by the lucky Jaylan, who had the magic touch that day. The crew and customers were kind enough to drop me off at the Marsh Walk dock and we snapped a photo of the partial day’s catch. They didn’t get off the boat with me.
“We’re going back out,” says Huskey. Of course they were. There were more fish to catch, more stories to tell, and a few unsettled wagers.
For more information or to book your own adventure, visit www.reelsaltyfishingcharters.com or call (843) 301-1090
