Saturday July 5 pier & jetty report

Pier#r

My sciatic leg pain has eased since the 2nd epidural (last month) and I decided to put it to the test.
The day started early as I wanted to check out the lights on the Cedar Point Pier (on Mississippi Sound).
Arrived there just after 5 am and got set up about half way out where the water drops from 4 to 8 feet.
It was a 'nice' morning for July, air temp about 70, wind was WNW at about 10 and it was mostly cloudy with a thunderstorm in the Gulf off the mouth of Mobile Bay.

Still it was a neat sunrise framed by the Dauphin Island bridge ...

The tide was hard incoming and it had the water silted up with visibility only about 6 inches.

But there was tons of bait in water, big LYs, sweet trout, bay anchovies and a few glass minnows.
Plus I had several dozen NICE live shrimp from Jemison's so I tried to stick it out hoping something good would happen.
ALL I caught was an oversized LY, one 12" ground mullet , a 9" searobin and a bunch of sweet trout, croaker and pinfish

I saw the other two dozen anglers land one medium white trout and maybe 5 other ground mullet,
along with a couple of stingrays, some hardhead cats and a plethera of pinfish and sweet trout (silver perch).
I did see a few slot sized redfish that occasionally blasted a school of bay anchovies and a few 'micro mackerel' too but none would bite.
Neither did the 5# or so sheepshead that grazed on the piling right below me

The fish were laughing so after 5 hours of 'sticking it out', I decided to hang it up.

Plan B:
I drove over to Dauphin Island and the east jetties.
The water was not any better (south of the fort) and there were folkses on EVERY jetty but one and there was a LOT of boat traffic

Surprisingly, the clearest water I saw (3'-4' vis) was along the bank near the 'Free Pier' 8)
and fortunately the only fisherpersonless jetty was the one just south of the pier.
So I set up out there (about 11 am) and started drifting some live shrimp.
Not much happened except a few tiny bluefish that chased my shimp and occasionally got caught or cut me off. :fish:
I switched to a #4 Tru-turn hook (long shank) and had only two more cut me off.
One pleasant surprise was a 14" spanish mackerel that ate a shrimp too.
Another even bigger surprise was a 19" cobia

Too bad my tagging kit was in the car

Still he posed for a quick pic before release...

By 2 pm the tide had turned (now outgoing), I had caught 9 species of fish but had only 3 fish in the box

and I still didn't even have a fish to weigh in the ACFA tourney.
About to give up, I was resolved to feed the rest of the live shrimp to the pinfish.
I cast a live shrimp near the riprap about 15 feet from the shore and 'zip' it disappeared!
It was a speck 14" or so, but I'd left my tape measure in the car with the tagging kit

So to err on the side of caution I let it go of course.
The next shrimp was eaten by a 17" speck, followed by several more "near 14" specks.
I switched to my rod with a grub and a 4" pearl colored Fin-s and promptly caught a 19" speck 8)
The next 30 minutes or so was 'blissful' with practically non-stop trout bites swapping live bait and arties
I caught 8-10 speckled trout (most 'barely keepers') that I put back.
But that success at last really made perservering through the day worth it!
My leg still hurt some, but I would sit for a short time and it'd quit

All in all, it was a fine day and I even caught a mess of fish for supper!

Thank You Lord

btucker51175 · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:21 am Post subject:

nice job pier#r. thanks for the report and pics
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Brad Tucker
Can't wait tell Dec. 30th Winter Bobo's

Tiderider · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:22 am Post subject:

Nice way to change up tactics and fill the day with fish instead of failure. Great pictures and a great report.
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Go Fishing you can't catch them sitting on the couch!!!

Jigslinger · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject:

Great post and great pics David. Persistence pays off. I hope that leg pain gets better soon.

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Rob