Fishing Heron Bay

This afternoon I decided to get out of the apartment and try to catch a redfish or two at the Heron Bay cutoff on the way to Dauphin Island, Alabama.

I picked up a couple pounds of shrimp at Jemison's Bait-N-Tackle and chatted a bit about the fishing.

I was told that with the windy conditions, the best places to catch reds this afternoon was inside the bay so the obvious choice for me was the bridge at Heron Bay cutoff.

When I crossed the bridge, I spotted several boats fishing inside the bay so I immediately had high expectations.

I pulled into the road next to the bridge and was surprised to see only one other truck parked there.  

Since nobody was fishing around the wooden pilings, I figured that the person in the truck was fishing under the bridge, so I baited up a heavyweight Penn outfit with a large shrimp and a second smaller Penn Fierce II outfit with a small piece of peeled shrimp.

I fished under the bridge once before and knew that the fishing was good there but the rocks can quickly eat up a lot of lead weights.

I immediately started getting bites but the fish kept stealing my baits.  After losing three  or four shrimp, I put on smaller pieces and started catching and releasing Croaker on almost every cast.

After catching 6 or 7 Croaker, I was beginning to believe that the reds were in another area but an angler in a boat in the area I was fishing landed two fish, the second of which was a small redfish.

I was taking short videos of the area and got one of him landing the redfish.

As I landed yet another small croaker, the angler under the bridge came back to his truck.  He told me he caught a red on the way back to his spot.

I continued fishing and kept a couple  of croaker for bait.  I put a small one on the heavy duty rod just as the angler came by with his redfish.

I introduced myself and took a couple of pics of his fish which was just the right size for dinner.

I found that the larger "bull" reds have mushy flesh, especially during the summer months.

Anyway, we swapped numbers and  Aubrey showed me pics of some of the other fish he caught in the area.  I asked him to text me a few for this blog.

I assume all the fish were caught on shrimp but I could be wrong.  I do know that they were all caught in the same area in Heron Bay.

About 15 minutes after Aubrey left, I hooked into a big fish on the small Penn outfit that was loaded with 10 pound mono.

I had a small live croaker on that rod and when the fish hit and started running, I never slowed it down.   When I saw that I was almost spooled, I tightened up the drag as much as I could and the line snapped.

I don't know what the fish was but it was big.   Possibly a big red or a shark.

Anyway,  I fished live croaker on the other rod for about another half hour without a bite before I decided to pack it in and head back to the apartment.

Till next time,
Tight Lines.

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.