Dauphin Island Fishing

Since I've been spending a lot of time working in Mobile, Al., I've been able to sample some of the Dauphin Island fishing spots that the locals talk about.

This evening after I got through with my work I decided to drive down to the Dauphin Island jetties to see if I could pick up one of the bull redfish that the locals catch off the rocks.

 I stopped by Jamisons Bait Shop and picked up  a couple of fresh mullet to chop up into chunk baits and headed for the jetties.

The beach was crowded as usual and the parking spots were pretty much filled up, so I parked the truck, set up my two heavy duty surf rods and headed to the rocks.

I'd like to say that I picked up a couple of reds, but the truth is that I spent an hour and a half on the rocks watching the boat traffic and looking at the oil rigs without a single bite.

  It was getting late, so I decided to park my but on the small fishing pier to see what I could catch there.

When I pulled into a parking space, there were several fishermen already on the pier with light spinning rigs fishing for "white trout", croaker, whiting, and "brown mullet".

I walked to the end of the small wooden pier and tossed out both of my spinning rods with chunks of cut mullet and started making conversation with the guys who were already on the pier.

The guy on the one corner was evidently in a "honey hole" because out of everyone who was fishing on the pier, he was catching the most fish. On almost every cast, we was pulling in either a white trout (sand trout), brown mullet (southern whiting), or a croaker.

White Trout

Brown Mullet

Everyone but myself was using shrimp for bait, and although I had some shrimp with me, I stayed with the cut baits hoping for a bull redfish.

There was a lot of human and avian traffic on the water and on the fishing pier.  One friendly gull that the regulars called "gimpy" had only one leg and kept coming up to us hoping for a free handout.  And there was a green heron that I called "buddy", who was apparently not the least bit afraid of people that kept walking up to us looking for a free meal.

As the sun set and the full moon started to rise over the horizon, I started getting a bite on the large chunk of mullet I was dunking on my Okuma baitrunner.

The line slowly peeled off the reel and after a couple of long minutes I set the hook into a heavy fish.

I fought the fish for a few minutes until the line suddenly went slack.  When I reeled in my rig, the hook was gone and the 30 pound fluorocarbon leader was cut and abraided.  It looked like a shark had hit the bait.

Undaunted, I snelled on another 6/0 Gamakatsu Octopus hook and heaved out a larger chunk of fresh mullet.

As I was checking out the full moon and the lit oil rigs, another fish hit my bait.

I let the fish peel off some line and set the hook into another good fish.  This time I horsed the fish in as quickly as my 30 pound Cajun Red line would allow.

After a few minutes I got the fish to the edge of the pier and reached in to bring it out.

It turned out to be a two foot plus Gafftopsail catfish that weighed at least 5 or 6 pounds.

I took a pic of the fish in the dark and offered it to the guy who was catching all the white trout, but he didn't want to clean it and neither did I, so I released the fish to fight another day.

I usually don't keep salt water catfish, but I learned many years ago from a Destin, Fl. captain that the "sail cats" are great eating.  The problem is that you have to skin them and tonight I didn't want the hassle.

The wind was picking up and I was getting chilly so I bid farewell to the friends I made on the fishing pier, packed up my gear, and headed back to my apartment.

I learned that night fishing is when the "regulars" pick up some nice fish, so I told the guys I would be seeing them tomorrow if the weather was decent.

 Till next time, Tight Lines.