Saturday On Dauphin Island

I finally broke down and decided to get my Alabama out of state fishing license renewed so I could legally wet a line on Dauphin Island.

The weather was decent but there was a stiff wind blowing which made fishing on the Island pretty iffy.

I drove down to the bait shop and picked up a mullet and a couple pounds of fresh shrimp for bait.  

The lady at the bait shop said that a few fishermen were catching big black drum at the bridge on the incoming tide, so I decided to give it a shot before driving all the way to the end of Dauphin Island past the Mobile Ferry to fish.

I parked and walked to the spot she suggested to fish and baited up one of my long surf rods with shrimp.

She warned me about the rocks and suggested heavy tackle and since I was using my Penn outfit spooled with 20 pound Cajun Red mono, I felt well prepared.

The tide was rushing in under the bridge from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pelicans were having a ball feeding on the crabs and baitfish that was being pushed through the relatively small opening.

I took a couple of short videos of them feeding before tossing out my baits.

A couple of groups of anglers on the other side of the bridge seemed to be spending all of their time re-rigging,,. At least I didn't see anybody catching anything.

I had  bites almost every cast but they turned out to be catfish of all sizes.

I had to re-tie new sliding sinker rigs three times before I finally got fed up enough to leave the area.  Fishing in the fast current with 2 oz. egg sinkers is fun to a point, but when you get snagged on almost every cast; it gets old fast.

On the way out a couple of locals were coming in to fish and asked me what I caught.  I told them "only cats" and bitched about the snags a bit before asking them what they expected to catch.

They told me that they usually pick up croaker, drum, redfish, "white trout" and catfish in that area and occasionally sheepshead under the bridge.

I wished them well and headed down to the end of the island.

The waves along the causeway were breaking over the road in a couple of places and the water was pretty dirty.   Not a good formula for catching fish.

I got to the fishing pier and watched the crew boat head out to the closest oil rig to resupply the workers and after a seagull took a dump on my shirt I decided I had enough fun for one day.

 

The trip back to the apartment was uneventful but since I still had almost all my bait left, I made a mental not to go fishing tomorrow when the weather was supposed to be more favorable.

Till next time,

Tight Lines.