A family fishing tradition with Kenny and Gus Gustafson
- cdavis884
- Aug 5
- 6 min read
By Ford Walpole
Kenneth “Gus” Gustafson has been a devout angler his entire life. When he was growing up in Islip, Long Island, he fished the Great South Bay as well as freshwater ponds and streams. Basketball brought him to the College of Charleston, where the Hall of Famer still reigns as one of the Cougars’ all-time leading scorers and all-time leading rebounder.
After three years playing professional ball in France, Gus returned to Charleston, where he and his wife Trisha made their home and soon welcomed their son Kenny. After several inshore fishing trips with friends, Gus decided to visit the 1987 Charleston Boat Show, then held at Northwoods Mall. At the show, Gus bought a Boston Whaler Montauk from The Outboard Shop. A few outboard motors later, Gus still has the Whaler, which allowed him to master fishing in Charleston Harbor.
“I went out in the harbor and spent a lot of time making mental notes of places where I saw people fishing and at what tides,” Gus notes of his early inshore fishing education. “I also talked to a lot of people at the old Johns Rod & Reel and Haddrell’s Point.” He recalls seeing an angler with a stringer of fish, so he asked him the secret to fishing the jetties. The reply: “Shrimp, catch shrimp and catch shrimp!”
Gus fished with accomplished local angler Art Simkin, who taught him techniques for fishing the jetties. Gus and Kenny eventually fine-tuned float-fishing the rocks with live shrimp, and as a result, they won several fishing tournaments.
“During high school, I had two options on Sunday mornings: I could go to church with Trisha or go fishing with Gus,” Kenny says. During this time period, the “Trisha Rule” was established, requiring that the first or biggest flounder caught go home with her. “Gus was pretty intense about fishing, but I wasn’t as serious when I was young,” Kenny explains.
While he was a student at Clemson, though, Kenny caught his father’s passion. “Gus was like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid; he had taught me skills I didn’t know that I possessed. I really got into it!” Kenny remarks on his evolving obsession with angling.
“Kenny came home from college and asked to take his friends fishing on the Ashley River,” Gus recalls. “They caught 25 trout while trolling. Kenny was so happy that he was able to put his friends on the fish all by himself. Even now, when you go fishing with Kenny, it is always an enjoyable experience because he knows where to go, and you are going to catch fish.”
Kenny continues to hone his craft. For instance, he has developed a technique to throw an Alabama rig on schools of Spanish mackerel. He saw the rig used for largemouth bass on a television show, and Kenny realized it would look like a school of bait.
In the early years, with no live well, the Gustafsons hung three vented five-gallon buckets of bait caught at first light, ideally three hours on either side of low tide. “We filled two bait buckets with shrimp, and the other one with finger mullet,” Kenny says. They fished for jack crevalle and Spanish mackerel around Drum Island and then would head out to the jetties.
In the mid-2000s, the Gustafsons had one of their best years fishing, even without a functioning depth finder, GPS, or trolling motor. They won the Charleston Yacht Club Tournament. In the Lowcountry Anglers Tournament, Gus earned first place with a bluefish, and the duo won first, second, and third place for sheepshead. On one particularly great day at the jetties, when everything seemed to be biting their live bait, they landed 60 fish and 15 different species.
Gus became fishing buddies with Chris Andrews, the first director of the South Carolina Aquarium. “He was always amazed at how many fish we could catch in sight of the aquarium. We always took pictures with fish in front of the building.”
“It really is amazing how good the fishing is in the harbor,” Kenny says. “The harbor has nearly 400 years of dilapidated structure all along the edges. It is cool to take people fishing in the harbor; you are basically downtown, and you are catching huge fish, so it really is a 360-degree experience.”
“With three rivers flowing into it, Charleston Harbor is one of the finest urban estuaries in America. Even with all of the people and pressure, I love the seasonality of the harbor. It is very welcoming; every season, it has a nice array of fish for you to catch,” Gus declares. At the beginning of the year, the father and son like to focus on the jetties and nearshore for sheepshead, black sea bass, black drum and flounder.
“By the end of March, fishing begins to perk up: Spanish, bluefish and jacks start to show up, and they really like artificial lipped and top water plugs. I love throwing the fly in the spring, when the water is clear, and it makes for great sight fishing and catching reds on the fly,” Kenny says.
Kenny enjoys fly fishing in the grass at the floodtide. “I like looking for hummocks with a little higher land with some scrub, which often denotes a sandy bottom with feeder creeks, but I am really looking for places I can walk. I went zero for two last week, but it was a really relaxing trip,” he says. Landing a spot-tail in the grass is especially rewarding since he ties his own flies.
Throughout the years, Gus has transitioned almost exclusively to artificial bait. “The secret of artificial bait is to learn to work it properly in the water column and to make it look like live bait,” he says. “You might never outfish a live shrimp, but with the proper techniques and equipment, you can catch so many fish on artificials.”
The Gustafsons fish topwater plugs in the morning. They are particularly fond of Z-Man baits, which are manufactured locally. Gus has fished with Daniel Nussbaum, the company’s CEO. Artificials allow you to drive to the spot and immediately put lines in the water — without wasting valuable fishing time locating bait. “Tricking the fish is the ultimate objective of fishing with artificials and flies,” Kenny says. “It is a beautiful thing to make the fish eat what you want them to eat!
“Fishing in the summertime is super fun! All of the fish stay here, and the tarpon show up, as well. We like to float fish with live shrimp for trout and redfish,” Kenny adds. “I still love the joy of watching the cork go down under the water; I am like a kid every time it happens. It is a serotonin rush and reminds you, ‘this is real’!” This time of year, casting live menhaden at the jetties is enticing for tarpon and channel bass.
In the fall, Kenny starts fishing with finesse soft plastics. He uses eight-pound braid line and 15-pound fluorocarbon leader on seven-foot, lightweight panfish rods. “These rods are super-sensitive, so you can feel the trout nudge the bait. If you can’t feel it, you can’t set the hook and they will spit out artificial bait once they taste it,” he says. “The fall is hands-down our favorite season with an opportunity to catch dozens of trout at spots all over the harbor.”
Fishing starts to slow down after Christmas, when the water temperature reaches below 50 degrees. “Unfortunately, part of the cycle of Charleston Harbor is a serious, hard freeze every five to seven years,” Kenny says. “We are coming off of that from this past January. Before this year, we had a six-year run of some of the best fishing we have had since the late 1990s and early 2000s. The harbor will bounce back from the latest freeze, but it will take a couple of years. Then, we will have a few years of really good fishing before it freezes again,” he says.
“Friends come and go, but the fish are always there!” Gus laughs before reflecting on the impact fishing has had on his relationship with Kenny. “It has been really nice to have my son as a fishing partner all these years; he loves the same thing I do, which is hard-core fishing!” he says.
“Gus and I are very competitive,” Kenny points out. “We have taken friends fishing, and Gus has conducted a lot of business over the bench seat of his Whaler, which is way better than what could happen in any boardroom. I also love to take people fishing: executives from work, neighbors, friends and family. “I would say that the fishing rod will put you in some of the most beautiful places in the world, and to enjoy being with friends and family is great,” Kenny notes.
Kenny’s daughters, Amelia (12) and Ann Cate (9), have continued the Gustafson family tradition. “Both girls can throw a cast net, grab a live shrimp out of a bucket and cast a rod. And I am very proud of that!” Kenny declares.
Ford Walpole lives and writes on John’s Island and is the author of many articles on the outdoors. He teaches English at James Island Charter High School and the College of Charleston and may be reached at fordwalpole@gmail.com.
