Fishing In Mobile

Fishing in Mobile, Al. is definitely not like fishing the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

This afternoon, I decided to get out and sample the
fishing in the Mobile, Al.  area.

The two options I had was to either fish Dauphin Island or head towards the  causeway at the Admiral Raphael Semmes Bridge which was a lot closer to where I was staying.

I opted for the latter and loaded up a spinning rod, some lures, and some Pro-Cure for the trip.

After leaving the tunnel, I took the first right towards the bridge and pulled off at the first place where I could park without getting stuck.

The air temperature was in the high 80s and it was raining off and on all the while I was fishing the sea wall.

As I was getting my tackle ready, I met with a fisherman who was leaving the area.  He said the fish weren't hitting and that he was going to another spot on the other side of the bridge.

Undaunted, I tied on a D.O.A. Cal Shad Tail bait and smeared on some Pro-Cure Inshore formula and started blind casting around the shallow, weedy areas close to the bank.

On almost every cast I pulled up some sea grass.  I missed a couple of hits but with the tackle I was using, landing a large fish in the grass would have required a lot of luck.

I moved up the sea wall across from the U.S.S. Alabama and started gradually casting just off the weed line into deeper water.

I had two "bumps" but no real takers so I changed lures and tied on a small size Johnson's Sprite.

The deeper water didn't have as many weeds but the fish were either not in the area or they had lockjaw.

As I continued working my out into deeper water towards the bridge abutment, I came across Luke, who was bait fishing along the sea wall.

He was using dead shrimp for bait and had caught some small Sail Cats and "sailors choice".     As I was walking towards him, he had a croaker type baitfish on as bait and had just missed a nice fish.

He was mostly a freshwater fisherman but decided to try fishing saltwater this afternoon.

The tide was going out and as we spoke about the fishing, Luke had a good bite from a small bull shark that grabbed the bait, and despite the braided wire leader, broke off.   I told him that they had sandpaper like hides which was probably why the mono filament line parted.

I tied on a Chug Bug and started tossing it around the crab traps hoping for a sea trout hit.  After twenty or so casts I finally had a small trout bust on the plug but I didn't get a hookup.

Several more casts produced a lot of weeds but no fish so I decided to head to another area.

I bid Luke farewell and good luck with his fishing and headed down the narrow sea wall back to the truck.

As I was walking off, I took a pic of some folks sailing along with the outgoing tide towards the Gulf.

Looks like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Till next time, Tight Lines.