Inshore vs Offshore Meg Ledge

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al248005

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Location
Bridgeport, Ohio
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Looking to book a meg ledge charter and have never dove the ledge before. Any pros/cons on inshore vs offshore. Are the offshore ledges harder to get to with weather etc? Thinking of going in mid-July. Either sites produce better quality teeth?
 
Off shore is supposed to be better. I did one day last week and got 4 teeth over 5.5" and 10 or so more over 4". I think that is pretty good but i dont have anything to compare personaly. As far as weather if one is blown out they probably both are.
 
It’s not really fair to call the inner ledges “inshore” because they are still in the mid 20’s from the beach and in 85-100’ of water. The outer ledges are another 10 miles or so and in 110’ of water. Some of the inner ledges have been worked extensively, and in their hay day we’re extremely productive. Not so much anymore. There are some lesser known spots in that range that are still very productive. So my point is neither is better. Trust your operator for their knowledge. You can’t go wrong with Wrightsville Beach Diving or Carolina Beach Scuba. Don’t go on a crew boat, stay with a six pack. The bigger boats in the area are fine operations, you just do not want to be on a ledge with 20 other divers all with reels and fanning the bottom.
 
The boat I was on yesterday hit the “inshore” ledge. We got a lot of rain, but the weather radar looked nastier out towards the “offshore” ledge, so we didn’t head out there. Keep that in mind in case you’re dead set on wanting to dive the “offshore” ledge...even if you book the dive to hit that ledge, Mother Nature may not cooperate and make that possible.

From what I’ve heard...”offshore” is better (not as heavily worked), but inshore can still be pretty productive if you go out with a good operator that can put you on teeth. This was my first ledge trip and I got these on one dive. The largest is 5.9”.

1D0AEF97-B07E-42E9-BFD5-871B63F37C33.jpeg

Results on inshore ledges are likely going to be operator specific. In the case of my dive yesterday, they (Jet Lag Dive Charters) knew where teeth were and put us on them. It’s just on you to find them (I didn’t find jack my second dive...but that was a personal problem, lol).
 
I was with @Barnaby'sDad yesterday and we had a great day on the ledges. It does take some technique and additionally some luck to consistently find teeth, especially if you aren’t blowing out big holes with a scooter. But there are still plenty of teeth out there.

@Tortuga James - I know you used to occasionally run ledge trips, do you anymore at all? Never been on your boat but always wanted to at some point (Hiding on the Bottom was an important book to me, changed the way I viewed certain things in life).
 
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