Fishing is an excellent way to pass time. I enjoy inshore saltwater Gulfcoastal fishing the best. Long ago I gave up on the notion that it was fun to catch something as big or bigger than myself. It is also back-breaking labor! I can labor at things more constructive so I pass on going after the mammoth fish of the deep.
Inshore fishing on the Gulf of Mexico is always a fun endeavor for me. I enjoy every aspect of it. I particularly enjoy early mornings when it is quiet, just the sound of the surf, a few shore birds, digging in the tidal break line for the sand-fleas for bait along with enjoying the beginning of the day. These sand-fleas are actually small crustaceans. Once on my hook they begin their job of enticing a nice fat whiting, a small redfish or a flounder to take them & thus my hook. I use a 6 1/2 foot med. action rod with a Shimano Baitrunner 3500 spinning reel, 8# test line & a 12" mono-leader. I also carry some artificial baits, a Yo-Zuri red/white darter, a Zorra Spook & a couple of Neon Grubs. In the later part of the day I will use live shrimp, frozen shrimp, cut bait or squid. Rarely, I will take the small castnet & get some greenback minnows, silverside minnows or small mullet to use as bait.
I like to take my kayak in the bay to get up under the magroves along the slough banks, around the oyster bars & other less accessible places. I prefer to use top-water bass plugs for redfish. The redfish get mad at these plugs & seem to like to attack them. Works for me! At night prowling the docks, piers & wharves I hunt the elusive snook! A hard hitter with tons of fight! I use small pinfish, Zorra Spooks or silver side minnows for these guys! Ultra-light tackle is excellent in a small kayak.
Fishing the grass flats for sea trout, also called weakfish or speckled trout a.k.a. specks, is an excellent way to have some fun. Using live shrimp, no sinker & allowing the bait to drift across the grass flats can produce some nice results. Usually you will get a speck but sometime you get a snook or a flounder as well. In winter the warm water outflows of the electric power plants produce a lot of fish.
Wading in the bays & the Gulf is fun in warmer weather. Using shrimp or cut bait works well when you wade. Often times on the Gulf side od the state we catch Spanish mackeral, whiting & redfish this way.
Pompano in schools often swarm along the Gulfcoast breakwaters. Live shrimp work best for these delicious fighters. If you get into a school of these it is not unusual to catch a number of them in just a very few minutes.
Small blacktip sharks are fun as well. They will strike anything that is dragged along the bottom. They will fight & on small ultra-light tackle they are hoot!
More later......just writing this has me wanting to go now...!
Copyright © 2006 - 2008 Donald R Houston, PhD. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the author's consent.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 17
Best Spottie - 4.2 kilo.
Best Grey - 7 kilo.
Best Spanish - 22.6 kilo.
I also enjoy reef fishing (we live just off the Great Barrier) but out on the reef it is a little like shooting into a barrel - they almost jump into the boat. Too much like shopping rather than fishing.
Along the mangroves I hunt Grunter, Potato cod, Barramundi, or Batfish.
In the lower reaches of the Pioneer river which runs right through town I hunt Northern whiting and Flagtail Flathead.
Along the beachfront you find the big Flatties.
It is always great to talk fishing but I am hesitant to list all the fish that are available here in Mackay as it would be an awful long list. After I had finished Uni down south I took a year off from the world and spent the time fishing. A whole year devoted to piscatorial delight. (Ahhhh those were the days...)
I'd esp like to have a go at your freshwater environment. We don't have much in our lakes in the way of sports fish beyond Barramundi and Redfish. Down south I angled for Rainbow and Brown trout - but you guys have a whole bunch of stuff entirely new to me. (By god but the crush is now looking even longer....)
Seriously, what do you do when the fish aren't biting?
Magi
Since I'm leaving this state in exchange for another in less than a month, I am not going to bother getting a fishing license here, so I just missed out on fishing opener this weekend - and miss getting out there & fishing!
My Dad is an Oyster and Clam farmer so we love seafood and get lots of it.
Thanks for sharing!
But there are still some decent fishing piers in the area and now that I'm going to have a Jazzy powerchair, we'll probably go several times this spring and summer.
We have fun with specks and spanish mackerel up here on the panhandle, plus redfish and blues, plus crevale jack.
We use live shrimp and Got-cha lures for Spanish mackerels and specks. King mackerel will hit menhaden of course, but also spots. Blues and redfish love bass plugs, just like you said, especially around dawn, and bluefish, which will hit practically anything, seem to love the rattler lures.
I also use cutbait...small mullet or squid. Chris will often use the castnet for alewife minnows, but I also get a kick out of using Sidiki rigs with the teensy gold hooks on a long line with a weight at the bottom to catch the minnows. I never have to subject them to a bait bucket for long that way, catching them as I need 'em.
I haven't caught a lot of flounder, nor red snapper in the bays. We'll see what happens when we try the fishing pier off Pensacola Beach in a couple of weeks. I'll report back.
The strangest fish I ever caught was a sea robin, it was ugly, squooshy like a fat frog, and it "sang" in melodic tones when I brought it up. It really gave me a start!! I was happy to toss him back into the bay. LOL!