My First Dauphin Island Bull Redfish

After work this afternoon, I finally managed to snag my first Dauphin Island Bull redfish.

Even though I told the guys I was fishing with yesterday evening that I would probably return tonight, it wasn't until around 5:30 pm that I decided to give it another try.

The weather was beautiful and there was a neap tide.  Everyone I spoke with told me that the fishing this evening should be good, so I packed up my two surf rods and headed to Wally's World to pick up a folding sports chair and some sinkers.

Walmart had some chairs for sale at around $6.50 each, so I picked one up along with some barrel swivels, a bag of 3 oz. bullet sinkers, and some 6/0 Octopus hooks.

I stopped at Jemison's  Bait-N-Tackle to pick up a couple of large fresh mullet for bait and headed towards the jetties.

I originally planned to stake out a spot on the fishing pier, set up my sports chair, and lay back waiting for something to hit my baits, but when I got to the fishing pier there were a bunch of people there so I decided to see if there were any parking spaces available near the longest jetty.

As I drove towards the beach, I lucked out and got a parking spot directly across from the longest jetty.

I rigged up both rods with sliding sinker rigs, new fluorocarbon leaders, fresh 6/0 Octopus hooks and headed toward the rocks.

The beach was super crowded but almost nobody was fishing the jetties.

A couple of guys walking by asked me if I caught anything and when I told them I hadn't started fishing yet, wished me good luck.

I carefully meandered to the end of the jetty, cut up a mullet into big 3 inch chunks, baited up both rods and sat down on a rock to watch my rods.

I took  a bunch of pics of the rocks and boat traffic to pass the time and as I put down my cell phone, the rod spooled with 30# Cajun Red line started to act like a fish was playing with the bait.

I figured it was a sail cat and thought that a red would take the bait and keep on going like they do in the Mosquito Lagoon and Indian River, but I was soon proved to be wrong.

The line slowly started to peel off the reel, so I gave it a long minute (literally) and set the hook.

At first I thought I had bottom.  There was no pull, just resistance but as I started to pump in some line, the fish woke up and decided to swim back into the Gulf.

It took around 10 minutes before I could tell I had a redfish on.  I actually thought I had a shark, but when I saw the goldfish color in the waves I knew I finally snagged my first Dauphin Island bull redfish,

I tried to take a video of the battle with one hand and fight the fish with the other hand but it was impossible.  The fish was too strong and kept making runs.

It took about 20 minutes of serious pumping before I could get the big red close to the rocks.   It took three tries before I could skinny down to a spot where I could gill the fish out onto the rocks.

I seldom keep the fish I catch but I planned to harvest one fish for dinner and that's just what I did.

I have no doubt that I could have caught several more reds from the school in the same area, but I was worn out and didn't want to kill myself getting off the rocks.

The redfish was in the 30 pound range and although it was not the biggest I ever caught, it was definitely one of the hardest fighting reds I ever landed anywhere.

When I reeled in my other rod I noticed that the bait had been stripped from the hook, so I carefully grabbed the fish in my right hand, my rods and bait with my other hand and made my way off the rocks to the safety of the beach.

When I got to the beach, a guy who was apparently watching me land the fish congratulated me and then offered me $20.00 for the fish.

I passed up his offer and asked him if he would take a couple of pics of me and the fish with the results below.

When I got to the truck, another guy asked me how big the fish was so I pulled a tape from the truck and measured it at a little over 39".

 
In Florida with the tail pinched it would go 40".

It was getting late and I knew it would take some time to clean the fish so I packed up and headed to the apartment.

The main problem I had cleaning my dinner was the fact that the sink was too small.

Till next time, Tight Lines.