Fishing on the side: Coastal Alabama

A student researcher that I have been working with was invited to speak at the Flyway Council meeting in Alabama and I also attended to learn about the Council.  When I saw that we'd be in Orange Beach, my gears started turning about fishing.  I watched some insightful videos from Bama Beach Bum and geared up.  I decided that I didn't want to go all-in on the beach fishing in case we had no luck (or skill), so also brought the trusty ol' Clipper canoe.

We had a long, stressful drive, but our luck turned when the hotel informed us that they had oversold street-view rooms and would have to move us to a top-floor ocean-view room.  Darn!

Before each day's meetings began or after they adjourned, I sneaked out for an hour or so of fishing.  It was great just to be on the seashore again!

The view from the balcony was helpful for reading the sandbars and troughs off the beach and picking out a good spot to fish.

That great blue heron kept hangin' around, waiting for me to catch a fish for him to eat.  About twenty minutes into the fishing, while I was talking with a fellow meeting-goer, one of the rods started twitching.  I set the hook several times and held on.  I had been expecting mostly 1-3 pound fish, and quickly realized that wasn't what I had hooked!  The fish made a few good runs and then was dead weight.  I thought maybe it was a stingray that had set on the bottom.  Eventually, I got the fish to the edge of the sand and Wes, the other attendee, ran out and grabbed the fish since I had my shoes and socks on.  I appreciated the gesture, but knew I was about to get wet anyway.  No way I was going to drag this beauty up onto the dry sand!  The fight had been longer than necessary because the second hook on the pompano rig had hooked the fish's anal fin after those first few runs, so she came in sideways.  Wes helped by grabbing my pliers for me and snapping a few pictures before I let her swim away.  A few beach walkers stopped by to gawk as the ordeal unfolded.  This was an amazing surprise and the biggest saltwater fish that I have caught in years!

That was it for the morning.  The only other bite we got at that beach in the following attempts was a small croaker that Ethan landed.  Yay, first saltwater fish!

We decided to try other spots.  We hit the inlet to Little Lagoon down in Gulf Shores, but the local conservation officer who checked our licenses told us what I was starting to figure out: the tide was going the wrong way for that spot.  Much better fishing during outgoing tide.  We then packed it up and headed down the Bon Secour NWR to fish the beach there, looking forward to a spot with less buildings along the shore.  The fishing wasn't much better, but the scenery was nice.  We landed a small whiting and saw another fisherman land a monster redfish.  A dozen or so other folks didn't fare well.  One group told us that they only had luck on their farthest casts, so Ethan and I made up for our handicap of having short rods by wading out to the sandbar to cast.  It has mostly been cloudy during the trip, but looking at these pictures, I can now see why we were beet red that evening!

We had given beach fishing a pretty solid effort, but it wasn't working out.  We drove all the way down here with a canoe on the roof, so it was time to make use of it.  We headed to the Jeff Friend kayak launch and started paddling west.  We got to a sandbar point and started fishing.  We used plugs at first and I caught a nice trout.  We then switched to shrimp and started hooking croakers and Ethan got a nice sheepshead.

We fished again the next morning and added a few more croakers, another seatrout, and another sheepshead to the cooler.  Laura's getting fish dinner when we get back to Illinois! In the meantime, we got some fresh seafood while we were still close to the source.