Fishing For Redfish and Tripletail on the East Coast
Fishing the Georgia Coast with Clement Cullens (Outdoors by Owner)
The Story of Outdoors by Owner
Growing up on the Georgia Coast
Fishing for redfish, trout, and flounder
Conservation and Fishery Management
Sight Fishing for Redfish and Tripletail in Oak Island North Carolina
Growing up on the Georgia Coast
Jud: Clement what’s up? Thanks for being here!
Clement Cullens: Thanks for having me. I am excited to be here and talk a little bit about Outdoors by Owner and maybe talk a little bit of fishing.
Jud: So like I mentioned you guys Clement is the founder and CEO of Outdoors by Owner so I’ll let him get into and explain exactly what that is. Just a blessing to have him on and be partnering with him for 2023. This is the first podcast of 2023 and it’s going to be a big year. We are excited about everything that’s in the works. Man, let’s hear some of your story. Tell me how you got into fishing, the outdoors, where you grew up? I want to know a little bit about you. This is new to me too so I’m excited to hear.
CC: Yeah, sure. So I got into hunting and fishing, the outdoors world, the cheap and easy way. I was born into it. My dad was a big hunter, big fisherman, grew up on the Georgia coast doing nothing but inshore fishing, had a great childhood of catching redfish and sea trout, flounder, and then as I grew up a little bit I realized it was just the coolest thing in the world to have been raised in a really great fishery, a really great place. As I got into my late teens, early 20s, I got really into both in-shore and off-shore fishing even more. I started traveling around a lot and have fished most of the Florida coast, Louisiana, Texas, North and South Carolina. I’ve kind of been all over in-shore fishing and have mixed in some off-shore fishing, which I love to do but isn’t as much my forte. So yeah, I was born into it, did it with my dad growing up and developed friendships with folks around the marinas when we were kids and those are still most of my fishing buddies.
Low tide vs. High tide Fishing
Jud: That’s awesome! So, nowadays if you had perfect conditions and could be anywhere you wanted to be fishing wise, what would it be? What would you be doing?
CC: What a question! I hate that question. So, I guess it’d probably be catching tail and reds in the flooded marsh in either Georgia, South Carolina or Florida. Anywhere those redfish are tailing. I just love poling through the salt marsh and having those sight casts with those big aggressive reds coming through there. I guess that’s kind of the cheap and easy answer.
Jud: So flood tide grass fishing for redfish. We would pass each other at the boat ramp because I would be coming in from fishing low tide redfish and you would be heading out to target the floodtide. I love the floodtide but I love the low tide tailing fish a little bit better.
CC: So yeah, down here in Georgia we’ve got a little bit of trickier fishery and at low tide those fish school up pretty big in the winter, but they can be a little bit trickier to target but I’m with you.
Jud: I don’t think there is a better one, but what draws you more you know? Most people say the grass, but for some reason I like the low tide a little bit better. Y’all’s tides are so big that those fish, will they stay in the same little creek system high and low? Or do they fall way out of the creeks when the tide drops out?
CC: They kind of hang in a general area. So, the high tide marsh they can fish for them. Tailing is generally not far from a low tide flat and I guess part of the reason that my answer is high tide marsh poling is down here we do have really big tide swings but it’s only every few weeks that we’d get a set of tides that it’s high enough and with enough daylight especially in the colder months. It gets dark a lot earlier so there’s a lot less window to go poling the high tides.
Jud: That’s very true. It’s more special because you don’t get to do it everyday. I feel like your area is the best kept secret of shallow water sight-fishing on the east coast.
CC: Yeah let’s tell all your listeners about it.
Jud: Yeah it really is; if I could start over… I have fished a little bit of Georgia around Savannah, but very little fishing. But from everything I hear, if I could start over, I would have started guiding there. It’s so intriguing. You’re far enough north. But North Carolina is cool too because we get a lot of northern types of fishing like Tog Fishing and a lot of Northern flounder that come down and real good sheepshead fishing and some of the stuff that happens in the Chesapeake Bay and up in New York, but we still have Tarpon that come up form Florida because we aren’t too far North for that. But y’all have a really cool mixture as well.
CC: We have a tremendous fishery. The Georgia coast is only about 100 miles long but it’s got, I think it’s like 1200 miles of coastline, shoreline. Just huge Marshland, estuary and the ecosystem here. Everything comes in here to breed. We’ve got great reddish spawns, trout, flounder, the sheepshead coming through. We get tog coming through too. Not as much sight-fishing on the tarpon but there are a few guys who are great at that around here. A great Tarpon fishery, and some pretty unique stuff too like we’ve got an awesome triple tail fishery in Georgia.
Protecting Fisheries in Georgia and North Carolina
CC: It certainly is a lower pressure ecosystem than say around Charleston or Morehead City any of the big metropolises, but we are starting to see some tell-tale signs that everybody from the guide community to the recreational anglers are all kind of starting to get a little bit concerned about our fish populations and working with the department of Natural resources in Georgia who are super receptive. They have done great things to help us protect this awesome fishery we have.
Jud: I see a lot on social media lately, especially guides that I follow down in Georgia who are posting about limits and different fishery management policies that are going on down there. It seems really cool. Like every time I follow somebody. Like Scott Owens, I follow him and he will talk about things that get approved. In North Carolina, we are constantly battling and there is never any headway for what we’re pushing for. But it is really cool to see a state and a management system that is listening and making changes. I could be wrong, but it does seem like they are making steps.
CC: Yes for sure. One of the main hats that I wear is I sit on our fin fish advisory panel which is for salt water anglers to have sort of a voice in the government as far as the limits for our salt water fin fish. It’s been a really cool learning experience for me, to see exactly what goes into those regulations. For example, Georgia has a five redfish limit. Five fish per angler.
Jud: That’s a lot of meat.
Clement: It is and you know; our slot is pretty low, 14-23 inches. The guides and recreational anglers have come together and said “even if it’s legal, we probably shouldn’t do that.” A lot more captains are practicing catch and release and encouraging their charters to do the same. Recreational guys are doing the same thing. Folks are really getting good organic conservation. And on the government side we’re making headway towards those regulations; decreasing the limit. They got kind of consumed by other political stuff going into the fall session so in the Spring I’m sitting here holding my breath for it.
Jud: We’re still battling the overfishing here. Commercially and recreationally. Once a fishery is depleted it’s overfished by everybody. IF the stock is already low, its overfished by everybody. It’s an uphill battle nad it’s so hard to get your voice heard and to let people know where and what they need to be doing to having their voice heard. CCA in North Carolina has been working hard to try to do, but it is in uphill battle. So, you grew up fishing, were you hunting a good bit too?
CC: Yes, if I wasn’t fishing I was hunting. I have done a little bit of everything, but mostly if it has feathers on it, that’s my jam.
Jud: I cannot sit still in a deer stand. I love all the pre-work like hanging the stands and putting the feeders up but as soon as I get in the stand, I’m like, Why am I doing this?
CC: So yeah, big duck hunter, dove, quail, obviously down here in Georgia we’ve got some of the best quailwood, natural quail and of course released birds all over the place, so yeah man, I’ve been in the woods or on the water my entire life. It’s been a great way to grow up and I guess at this point I am theoretically grown up, but I feel like I am still a little bit of a kid because I get to go out and do all this fun stuff.
Jud: Me too man. I know people joke about it, but I really do feel like “when am I going to be an adult?”
CC: Hopefully never right?
Jud: I want to be a responsible child, that’s what I want to be.
Introduction to Outdoors By Owner
Jud; Let’s talk about Outdoor by Owner. Take us through the birth, the idea, and what outdoor by owner is. First off, let;s talk about what it is and how it came to be?
CC: That’s a huge question, but I’ve given the elevator pitch enough times.
Jud: I want to hear about how you came up with the idea. It sounds like a fun story.
CC: Yeah, so the root of Outdoors by Owner is to provide a short-term rental platform, like Airbnb or VRBO, that doesn’t characterize properties by how close they are to the beach or a city, but provide information about the outdoor activities that are around the house. So anything from hiking and biking, to hunting and fishing. We highlight public land and water that you’ll have access to. We feature houses by their size (bedrooms, bathrooms, etc.) but we try to really highlight the outdoor friendly amenities whether that’s outdoor cooking areas or fire pits or access to public or private lands and waters. Any of our houses are tagged with activities. So hunting, fishing, hiking, biking or even tagged by species: redfish, flounder, trout, waterfowl. Whatever the owner wants to advertise and then we also highlight access. We encourage the owners to highlight if they have a boat ramp close by or if there is a wildlife sanctuary or state park or whatever they have. So we’re really just trying to get people out into the woods and onto the water and provide them with knowledge and experience. The underlying tenet of Outdoors by Owner is to make everything informational. So when you go to our website, we want everything to be at least informational. If you haven’t been to a location before, you get information about the location. If you haven't targeted a species before, like if you’re a freshwater guide who wants to come down to the coast of Florida and try your hand at some reddish or snook, we will provide information on that. We try to do all of this in different ways. Anything from our blog posts and our experience based posts that are regional dissections of areas telling you what you can expect in any given little quadrant. So we’ve got like all the coast of Florida dissected up. The coast of Georgia and the Georgia mountains. We are expanding into North and South Carolina so we’ve got good information coming onto that. So that is your 30,000 foot look and we encourage the owners and we help the owners curate the listing to provide down to about 15,000 feet. So local hotspots, good outfitters to check out while you’re in the area, access to boat ramps and fishing areas, all those things are provided on the listing side. So we’re really trying to empower all of the owners to characterize the property a little bit differently than they would if they were advertising on AirBnb or VRBO and give that bit of information. In my experience, folks go to places because they have heard of them before or they know somebody who has been there, or they saw a tv show where somebody was catching redfish in North Florida or catching Snook in Southwest Florida. But nobody goes anywhere that they haven’t really been exposed to from a fairly personal source. So its always like, my brother or my friend told me.
Jud: Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing there is.
CC: Yeah, so we’re trying to bring that into the 21st century and make it less word of mouth and more free information out there to help people accomplish their goals like you or I going somewhere we’ve never been, or a guy who grew up fishing but hasn’t done it in 15 years and wants to take his kids but doesn’t know where to start. That’s kind of the whole goal of Outdoors by Owner.
Jud: I think what’s so cool is that I can hop on the website, search Florida redfish, and it would pop up with properties that are areas that would be good to go red fish. Maybe accessible water thats good for redfishing, which is such a cool way to search. I’ve spent hours on AirBnb trying to find a property that has a dock or is near a boat ramp. But to take out all those steps, and to be able to find those pieces of property really quickly makes it so much easier and to know it’s built around and someone else is already thinking about tarpon fish in the keys, this is a good house for you.
CC: That’s exactly right. That’s kind of the foundation of the whole thing. That was the underlying idea of Outdoors by Owner which we started about a year ago. I was on a duck hunting trip in Apalachicola which I had done a few times, but it seemed like every year I was having to reinvent the wheel to figure out where to stay, what to do, how to do it.. Tons of research went into it. And then, that last year, the house we were staying at had a dock and was supposedly perfect for our purposes. So, we pull up to the house and it had a pier, but no dock and then there was a little bit of a wind issue so if you got a particular wind, it kind of blows all the water out. We get down there and our “dock” wasn’t exactly a deep water dock. It was more of a shallow water pier and I just kind of lost it. I called my buddy (now my business partner), and said there has got to be an easier way. There has to be some avenue to essentially curate an entire trip without running all over to the ends of the internet and still not knowing exactly what you’re going to get. So we spent a lot of time looking and realized no one was really doing this, so we hopped in. I called him on a Sunday and on that Monday I quit my job and incorporated our company the next day and haven’t looked up since. It’s been a real passion project and it’s exactly what you said. It’s a way for people to get the information they need without running all over the place. And it’s a new website. We spent about 8 months planning it out and we are still adding a ton of stuff. We’re live, we’re on reddit, we’ve got over a hundred listings on the website. We’re looking to keep expanding that but it’s something that will only get more and more fine-tuned. It’s very important for us to be a part of the outdoors community and to build that community vibe and have people giving good input from their listing or from leaving reviews. This is where the characterization of the property lends itself to a really powerful review system for people who are wanting to go and do these outdoor things. The example I always give is somebody can tag their property with black marlin down here, but it’s only going to take a couple of reviews to figure out “there is not actually black marlin off this island.” That’s the story of Outdoors by Owner and how we got started. We are coming up on a year here. It’s been fun.
Jud: That is super cool. This podcast is a lot of do it yourself. A lot of guys will listen to this, book some guides maybe, stay at a lodge, I’m sure people do that, but a lot of my listeners are people who want to go and figure it out themselves. But there is a part of it that you don’t want to think too much about and that’s where are we going to stay and where we are going to have good access for where we want to go and what we want to do. There are so many hours I;’ve spent on Airbnb and Google earth and other rental sites trying to figure out where to stay. I went up to Cape Cod this past year and we sea duck hunted up there and it took me 5 days of searching to find a place with a garage. To someone on vacation they don’t care, but to someone bringing a bunch of outdoor gear it is important. It’s just really cool that Outdoors by Owner takes a lot of that headache and leg work out and lets you focus on the outdoor activities that you want to do without worrying about the details. The website is very cool and you can easily search for what you need. It’s not just fishing and hunting, what else does it cater to as far as outdoor activities?
CC: Really any and everything. You know, hunting and fishing were the mainstays when we came up with the idea, but as I started going through and looking, I also do a lot of mountain biking and hiking and camping and birding and just anything outdoors. We really cater to all those pursuits. Hiking, biking, kayaking, canoeing, paddle sports, stargazing. There are so many folks who just want to get out of the city and look up at the sky. We suggest to owners that if it’s a relatively dark property, they can tag it for stargazing. That list will have scuba, snorkel, I mean everything that’s in the outdoors world. We will continue to add to that list and probably at some point delete some things, but we just want to have a really user-friendly experience. I’m glad you mentioned the do it yourself mentality of your listeners. That’s why this is such a great partnership with y’all. That’s really who we cater towards, we want folks that love to go out and do things themselves and our articles give that 30,000 foot perspective and we get the owners of the listing to get down to about 15,000 feet and really in my experience, that’s all the do it yourself people want. They don’t want to know what shalebed to hit, or what bait to use. There is a learning curve everywhere you visit which is part of the fun, we just try to take away the headache part.
Jud: It is so much more special when you go and figure out the hunting or fishing scenario yourself. I like to be pointed in the right direction, so I’m not wasting time, but to get out somewhere new. That Capecod trip, we could've booked a guide and spent less money, but for us it was so much more fun to go up there and figure it out. Look for birds and figure out flight paths and just figure it out. The listeners and myself we want to get out in a new place and figure it out ourselves, not pay someone to take us to the fish, but to just get pointed in the right direction. I feel like it’s more valuable that way. As an outdoors person, you respect a fishery or a place you go hunt more when you earn it yourself. There is more respect there.
CC: That tugs at my heartstrings, because the whole do it yourself mindset provides a deeper connection to the places you go visit. Even if you only go somewhere one time, you’re going to go through hell and high water to figure out exactly where the schools of fish are and where the birds are moving or whatever that is. There is a lot of pride and respect that goes into it. It’s just a whole other level of being a part of that outdoors community and that fishing world and getting some really great experiences. If I go somewhere on my own and catch a few fish, I am going to be absolutely stoked, whereas if I go somewhere with a guide, I expect to catch a fish, so it’s just a different mentality. I do think there is a place for all of it.
Jud: I am probably putting myself out of business right now. Remember it is so important to book a guide and tip him really well. No, I’m just kidding! I would rather do it myself, and if someone wants to do it themselves I fully encourage that, but nothing wrong with a guide either. Some guides are pretty cool.
Favorite and Popular Destinations
Jud: Do you have a specific listing that’s a favorite as far as fishing destinations?
CC: I’m not even going to touch that. I guess we’ve got stuff up and down the Georgia coast and I love the Georgia coast. We’re adding some more right here before the new year. I think one of the coolest places we’ve got some listings coming along. It’s called Stapalo island. It is largely a state run wildlife management area. And it’s got some houses on the interior. The history of that island would take hours to tell but it’s accessible by ferry and private boat. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere as far as fishing pressure goes so when I go, half the time I just take the ferry and fish from the bank. Awesome fly-fishing in some of the inlets that go right out into the ocean. Great redfish, great flounder fishing, lots of sheepshead. Totally unadulterated island that is a pretty well-kept secret so in Georgia I love that we’;ve got some Stapolo properties coming online. In Florida, I am very partial to the forgotten coast, Panacea and Apalciola. It’s called the forgotten coast for a reason but it’s just an hour south of Tallahassee, accessible to several airports and an accessible drive. Even from you, it’s a straight shot down and over. I love fishing over there. They’ve got a great inshore fishery and a lot of good untapped tarpon fishing, triple tail fishing and a lot of water fowl in that area. So I do love our forgotten coast properties. The crazy thing about starting this company is I’ve learned about so many places and really just scratched the surface of going to visit them. I might have fished around them before, but now I am really kind of penetrating these small little communities that might only be a couple hours from me but I’ve never heard of them. Some of these little towns are kind of lost in time like you’re in the 1960s or some of them are super modern just vacation towns people go to with tremendous fisheries around them. There is something for everyone. Whether you're going on vacation with the family or you want to go to a super rustic backwoods spot, we can do that too. Along those same lines, when we get into an areas, obviously we have two-sided marketplace so owners are free to list properties with us and we want to continue to get listings but as we’re targeting properties we kind of try to go for like 25% of them being really nice well-sppointed homes that have those outdoor friendly amenities. We want about 25% that are the opposite end. Little fish camps, you know $35 a night in the Georgia mountains, super rustic, but on some great trout fishing streams. The other 50% is the average house for the area. So we want this to be a platform that is inclusive for everybody and not cater to one group or the other.
Jud: There almost needs to be a tab that’s like “places you’ve never heard of.” There are still places out there, there are still some little secrets and niche places. The Forgotten coast for sure; the duck hunting is pretty solid down there, isn’t it?
CC: It is, all around the big bend of Florida and stretching across the gulf into Texas there are these giant pockets of redheads that winter down there. The forgotten coast is an awesome wintering ground. It’s one of my favorite places to go and not just because it’s three hours from me. It’s very accessible, the tides and rea are easy to get around. There is just something about seeing three or 400 redheads coming to decoy spread that gets me going.
Jud: That would get you going even if you’ve never heard of duck hunting. I want to go on that trip with you. I’ve always wanted to hunt Florida for redheads
CC: Any waterfowl hunter will appreciate that you’re usually in waders and short sleeves. It’s not that brutal cold
Jud: The fishing at the same time is probably good too. Shoot your birds in the morning and catch some fish in the afternoon.
CC: It’s a great fishery down there. It gets some decent pressure in the summertime but it’s pretty untapped in the winter. Just like a lot of spots, at least down where we are on the Georgia coast and most North Flordia where I fish pretty heavily, as the water cools off, the artificial bite turns on. Summertime down here, you can catch some sea trout on the artificials but by and large, the best bang for your buck is on live bait, when that water cools off, it kind of flips and there’s some awesome artificial fishing to be done all through that forgotten coast in the wintertime.
Jud: It’s exciting you guys. If you haven’t checked it out yet, go check out Outdoors by Owner. It’s a great way to find the perfect winter property. I am excited about using it for myself to find some spots to go stay and fish. It’s definitely the way I’ll plan trips from now on. We always go to Islamorada, fish a little bit and hang out. That’s because I love Islamorada, but my wife is always wanting to go to new places. I just never know where to go. But with this site I know I’ll be able to find what I’m looking for. The ability to have a family vacation and good fishing all in one package is super huge for us.
CC: There you go! That’s all the advertising we need man. That’s exactly right. We want to make it accessible. That’s the foundation of the whole thing.
OBO and Conservation
CC: There’s obviously some concerns about exposing untapped, covered up gems that do exist, that people don’t know a lot about but you know I think that the mission of outdoors by owner is to expose everywhere you will go and accomplish whatever your pursuit is and really expanding people’s view and not just going to the same places over and over again. I think it’s going to lead to a lot less pressure on all places generally. There are the same amount of people that are fishing, but let’s spread them out a little. That kind of speaks to something we haven’t talked about, which is conserving our wild and natural places. That’s foundational to our business; we don’t want to exploit places. We want to promote places, we want to have the stakeholders in those places be on board whether that’s outfitters or guides, or the property owner. So from the boots on the ground perspective, becoming a part of their community is big. And the conservation and general. We give back 100% of our profit from merchandise sales to conservation groups. And we give 5% of our profit from rentals, back to conservation groups. That’s a big part of our mission– so our kids and grandkids will have the same opportunities that we have.
Jud: Every business should be thinking like this, especially outdoor related business. How can I use this business, this platform this group of people to leverage a conservation stance on something I care about in the outdoors. If we all just put a little of our profits towards something we’re passionate about, it would be a huge help. It’s easy to complain, but it’s much harder to go and actually do something. Another great reason to go buy a shirt or a hat knowing it’s going straight to conservation.
CC: The 5% that we give back from our rentals is just a starting point. It’s one of those things that I would love to keep increasing year after year. It means a lot to me and I’ve always wanted to be able to give my time and money and my insight to any conservation group that will have me. Anytime I’m not working on Outdoors by Owner, I’m generally helping out with one of the conservation groups I serve. It is near and dear to use, so it’s something that will never go away from the platform.
Accessing OBO
Jud: I’m excited to be working with y’all this year and having more conversations like this. If someone wants to rent a house or search your properties, what’s the best way for them to do that?
CC: The website is go-obo.com That will take you to the main page and you can explore from there. You can look up properties by activity, species, location or by date. It’s got the rudimentary features so if you know you want to go somewhere for 4th of July you can just type in the availability and look there. If you know you’re going to be somewhere on vacation or a work conference and want to do a couple days of fishing you can search by location or by species or by “in-shore fishing” or whatever tickles your fancy. There are also blog posts, experience page posts (regional breakdowns of places). Go-OBO.com will get you going.
Jud: Thank you so much! I know the listeners are going to be stoked to go check that out. If people want to buy shirts or hats are those through the website as well?
CC: Yes, if you click on the resources tab we’ve got a merch tab and we’re currently doing that through a third party so it will link you out to our provider there. Just go to resources and merch and order you something.
Jud: Thank you so much for hopping on and talking fishing and OBO with me. I know we are going to have lots more conversations and hopefully on a boat together soon doing some fishing. Anything else you want to share with us?
CC: No man, I am just stoked to work with you this year and really looking forward to it.
Jud: Definitely, thank you so much! See y’all next week!