Saltwater fishing: licenses, piers, bait and tides

A day of saltwater fishing on this coast takes three purchases: a fishing license, a rod and reel, and live shrimp or mud minnows from a bait shop. With those, a public pier or a free bridge is enough. Every price and rule below was read from its official source on October 29, 2026, and each one links to that source.

• The license is bought online, by phone, or at a bait and tackle shop. South Carolina and Georgia each sell their own.
• The rod and reel come from a tackle shop. The county piers at Folly Beach and Mount Pleasant also rent them, along with selling tackle and frozen bait.
• The bait is live shrimp or mud minnows, sold at bait shops along the coast.

South Carolina Saltwater License

Anyone 16 or older fishing in South Carolina salt water from a beach, a bank, a boat, a private dock or a free public pier needs a saltwater recreational fishing license, according to SC DNR. The license also covers a cast net and up to two commercial-style crab traps, the square wire box traps.

Prices from SC DNR's resident and non-resident price lists. An annual license runs one year from the date of purchase.

Two cases need no license: fishing aboard a hired charter boat, and fishing from a licensed commercial public fishing pier. Some crabbing needs none either, which is covered in the crabbing section below.

The license is sold at dnr.sc.gov/purchase.html, by phone at 1-866-714-3611, and through about 1,000 license agents, which SC DNR lists as many local sporting goods stores, bait and tackle shops, major retailers and DNR offices.

Georgia Fishing License and SIP Permit

Georgia sells one fishing license for fresh and salt water, and adds a free Saltwater Information Program permit, the SIP, for anyone 16 or older fishing in salt water. Georgia DNR requires the SIP on top of the license and renews it every 365 days, even on a lifetime license.

Prices from Georgia DNR's license price chart, updated May 2025. Georgia adds a transaction fee to every license that has a cost. Residents 65 and older have senior license options listed on Georgia's license guide.

Both are sold at GoOutdoorsGeorgia.com, through the Go Outdoors GA phone app, at license agents, and by phone at 800-366-2661.

Piers, Bridges and Banks

No boat is needed to catch fish here. SC DNR keeps a list of coastal piers, docks and bridges, the source for every South Carolina pier below unless another link is given, and Georgia DNR lists its coastal piers on an accessible fishing locations page. SC DNR notes that fees and hours change, so the operator's own page is the one to check before going.

A licensed commercial pier covers the people fishing on it. Hunting Island State Park states this for its pier: the park has purchased a commercial license that covers all pier users. On a free pier or bridge, every angler 16 or older needs a license of their own. At any other fee pier, the pier shop can say whether its pass includes the license.

Greater Charleston

• Folly Beach Pier, on the ocean in downtown Folly Beach, run by Charleston County Parks. Under the pier's rules, a daily fishing pass is bought in the gift shop and fishing stops at sunset.
• Mount Pleasant Pier, beside Memorial Waterfront Park, also run by Charleston County Parks. The daily pass is sold at the River Watch Cafe. Charleston County Parks states that both piers offer equipment rentals, tackle and frozen bait.
• Pitt Street Bridge, at the end of Pitt Street in Mount Pleasant, half a mile of old trolley causeway on Charleston Harbor. No fee, open year round.
• Brittlebank Park Pier on the Ashley River and Sunrise Park Fishing Pier on James Island, both City of Charleston and both free.
• James Island County Park Pier on the Stono River, a fee pier with restrooms.

Beaufort County

• Paradise Pier at Hunting Island State Park, 1,020 feet over Fripp Inlet, covered by the park's license.
• Charles C. Haigh Jr. Fishing Pier on SC 278 at Pinckney Island, Hilton Head, free and open year round.
• Broad River Fishing Pier, 720 feet on SC 170 west of Beaufort, free.
• Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park in downtown Beaufort, with a 1,200-foot seawall on the Beaufort River.

Greater Savannah

• Tybee Pier, run by Chatham County Parks, open for fishing from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Parking on Tybee is paid, $4.00 an hour through the ParkTYB app or a kiosk.
• Lazaretto Creek Fishing Pier at Fort Pulaski National Monument, open dawn to dusk and free of the monument's entrance fee. A Georgia license is required.
• Tybee Back River Pier, Frank W. Spencer Park Fishing Pier, Thunderbolt Fishing Pier and King's Ferry Fishing Pier, all on Georgia DNR's list for Chatham County.

Piers, bridges, boat ramps, kayak launches and bait shops, with a map and a search by ZIP code: fishing spots.

Tackle

Fishing from a pier or a dock takes one light spinning rod and reel, a few hooks and weights, pliers, and a bucket for live bait. A spinning reel hangs under the rod with its spool open. Georgia DNR's guide to coastal fishing methods describes the light setup as a spinning reel with 8 to 10 pound line on a rod six feet or longer. The pound figure, called pound test, is the weight the line holds before it breaks. SC DNR recommends line of at least 12 pound test for smaller red drum.

• Hooks. Georgia DNR and SC DNR both recommend non-offset circle hooks with live or natural bait. A circle hook has its point curved back toward the shank, and in SC DNR's red drum research it caught smaller red drum in the jaw more than 90 percent of the time. That research used a 4/0 hook; on hook sizes written this way, a bigger first number means a bigger hook.
• Weights. Georgia DNR's flounder rig is a small egg sinker, an egg-shaped lead weight with a hole through it, then a swivel, a small metal link, and an 18 to 24 inch leader, a short length of line, to the hook. Its sheepshead rig uses a half-ounce egg sinker and an 8 to 10 inch leader.
• A float, also called a bobber or cork, which holds the bait off the bottom. Georgia DNR names a float rig with live shrimp as the most common method for spotted seatrout and red drum.
• Needle-nose pliers, which SC DNR recommends for taking out a hook.
• A bait bucket for live shrimp or minnows.

Tackle shops sell all of it.

Live Shrimp and Mud Minnows

Live shrimp is the bait for most of the fish in this guide. Georgia DNR calls live shrimp the best year-round bait for spotted seatrout, and lists shrimp as the usual bait for red drum, flounder, black drum, croaker and spot. Mud minnows, small fish from the tidal ditches of the marsh, are its other choice for red drum and flounder. Sheepshead want fiddler crabs, the small marsh crabs that Georgia DNR says can be picked up by hand on the sand flats along island causeways.

Coastal bait and tackle shops sell live shrimp and mud minnows, and Georgia DNR notes that marinas and bait shops also keep track of the fish biting that day.

Tides

The tide on this coast rises and falls by more than five feet. NOAA puts the mean range at 5.22 feet in Charleston and 6.92 feet at Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah River, and Georgia DNR describes its coast as having six to eight foot tides.

The fish move with that water. Flounder use flooded salt marsh at high tide, according to SC DNR. In the October report on SC DNR's saltwater fishing trends page, read on October 29, 2026, trout are caught around moving water and the mouths of creeks, and Beaufort-area redfish bite better on low and moving tides.

NOAA's tide predictions for Charleston and Fort Pulaski give the time of each high and low. A conditions page with tide, wind and water temperature is planned for the Lowcountry Magazine fishing section.

Common Catches

From a pier or a dock, the usual catch is a small bottom fish: a spot, a croaker or a whiting. Georgia DNR calls black drum, croaker and spot some of the most numerous and easily caught fish on its coast, abundant in its inshore waters, the creeks, rivers and sounds behind the beaches, from April to October.

A jetty is a rock wall built out into the sea, and an estuary is the stretch where a river meets salt water. Large red drum come into the surf in spring and fall. Sources: SC DNR's species pages for spot, croaker, whiting, black drum, sheepshead, red drum, seatrout and flounder, and Georgia DNR's fishing methods guide.

Georgia DNR calls the sheepshead the king of bait stealers. Its method is to lower a fiddler crab next to a piling, take up the slack, and treat the faintest tremble of the rod tip as a bite. Each fish has its own page, with a month-by-month calendar, in fish by month.

Size and Bag Limits

Every fish kept has to be within that state's size limit, and the bag limit sets how many of each fish one angler may keep in a day. The limits differ by fish and are revised from time to time, so the current numbers are on the official pages:

• South Carolina: SC DNR saltwater rules and regulations
• Georgia: Georgia DNR recreational finfish seasons, limits and sizes

Georgia DNR makes vinyl measuring and regulation decals, available at bait shops, sporting goods stores and DNR offices.

Keeping or Releasing a Fish

A fish within the limits can go on ice for dinner. Every other fish goes back in the water.

• Wet hands first. SC DNR says to handle a fish only with wet hands, and Georgia DNR explains why: wet hands keep the fish's protective slime in place.
• Support the body. Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission advises that a fish lifted from the water should have its weight supported horizontally.
• Take the hook out with pliers. If the hook is deep in the throat, SC DNR says to leave it in place and cut the leader, and that a large proportion of those fish survive.
• Keep it quick. SC DNR says not to keep a fish out of water while finding the camera, and to take the picture with the fish in the water where possible.
• Let it swim off. Georgia DNR says to hold a tired fish gently in the water until it swims away on its own. SC DNR adds that moving it gently forward passes water over its gills.

Folly Beach Pier's rules ask that every fish or ray not being eaten is released.

Crabbing and Cast-Netting Shrimp

Crabbing takes the least gear of anything here: a dock, a string and a chicken neck for bait. In South Carolina, crabbing with three or fewer hand lines, drop nets (flat round nets lowered to the bottom) or fold-up traps needs no license, a method SC DNR calls chicken necking. More gear than that, or a commercial-style trap, needs the saltwater license.

In Georgia, Georgia DNR's shrimp and crab rules require a fishing license and SIP permit for any seafood, crabs included. Hand lines and lift rings are legal, a person may set up to six crab traps of two feet by two feet or smaller, and salt water is open for crabbing year round unless the state designates otherwise. The same page sets Georgia's crab size and bag limits.

A cast net, a round weighted net thrown by hand, catches shrimp for the table and for bait. South Carolina requires the saltwater license to throw one. Shrimp baiting, which means drawing shrimp to a spot with bait before casting, has its own South Carolina license, $25 for residents and $500 for non-residents, with set season dates.

Under the same Georgia rules, cast-netting for bait shrimp is open year round. Shrimp for eating can be taken only during the food shrimp season, which the state generally opens from mid-June to mid-January, and only with a food shrimp net of at least 5/8 inch mesh. Baiting for shrimp is illegal in Georgia.

Charters

A charter trip comes with a boat and a captain who fishes these waters for a living. In South Carolina, anglers aboard a hired charter boat need no license of their own. In Georgia, a guide may hold a license that covers everyone aboard, and Georgia DNR says no SIP permit is then needed; anyone booking can ask the guide whether the trip is covered.

Captains, trip types and prices: fishing charters. Self-drive boats, kayaks and paddleboards: boat rentals.