An quick introduction to inshore saltwater fishing

I thought Id type this up and save it since many folks unfamiliar with saltwater ask what to fish for when they come down to stay at the beach on vacation and so forth. Here are just a few basic tips and tackle/rigging recommendations to get you started.

First of its not that complicated. Saltwater is no different than bass fishing for the most part. Reds Speckled trout, flounder, etc… are just ambush feeders/predators like bass/bream/stripers, etc…Id bet my meager paycheck you can catch any of the saltwater species with the majority or your bass lures. The only difference is they respond and feed more during tidal movements. Also for the purposes of this write up I am speaking about bass sized tackle as far as rods and reels. My preference is bait casting gear spooled with 10# and 2500 size spinning reels spooled with 8 or 10#. I fish a little lighter than most so anything in the 8-14# range will work just fine. You can catch anything from a 6” croaker to a 40+ inch redfish with good quality and quantity of line, have your drag set and know how to use it. If you want to go buy a 12’ “surf outfit” and sling 60lb test off the beach with a 14/0 hook baited with a small weaned child to catch the “big fish” then go for it. Just know that you will likely just catch sharks and rays (which is fine) but that’s not the intention of this write up.

Spanish and king mackerel run the Gulf side beaches. I like light hard wire or heavy mono leaders fished with alewives, pogies, BIG live shrimp or silver eels. You can drift them in the current or use small water balloons blown up and tied at various depths to float it out. This also helps if there is little current by allowing a breeze to carry it around. For kings you may want to step up to a reel capable of a few hundred yards of 20-30lb test. By catch for this will include but not limited to skipjacks, hard tails, bluefish, sharks, rays, etc…
One of my favorite beach fish to catch and eat are whiting. Carolina rig for whiting with a small 8 or 10 kahle or treble hook and a thumb nail size piece of peeled fresh shrimp. They are great fighters for their size and some of the finest table fare around.

Specks/reds will run the beach early and throughout the day also. I like to walk slinging a Krocodile spoon by Luhr Jensen in ½ or ¾ oz.
http://www.basspro.com/Luhr-Jensen-Krocodile-Spoons/product/8346/

I also like many of the mirrolure C17MR, 9MR-18 and 16MR. Lures that also produce well are many of various jig head/grub combinations twitched across the bottom or even higher in the water column. 1/8-1/4oz jig heads are usually sufficient. GULP baits in 3” pogie or shrimp in almost any color will work well also. I like “new penny”, “natural”, and “molting” but they all work pretty well in our area.

Live Bait:
I fish live shrimp/croakers 2 different ways. There are others but these are the basics and what works well. I like to fish Carolina rigged with a swivel, sliding egg sinker or split shot and about 16-20” of leader. Use as little weight as possible (even free lined at times) to get to the bottom. The other is slip corked. Slip corking helps in the event that you are around structure such as bay gas platforms or rock/oyster shell bottoms. This helps prevent some bait stealing from what we call “tail biters”. IE, Croakers, white trout, toad fish, and one million others. The depth for slip corking varies depending on the water depth of course. It varies from 2’ in the shallows to 20-30’ around gas rigs in the bay/offshore.


If anyone has anything to add please feel free to do so, I was trying to have something on here for folks fishing down this way without having to retype it every time.

Pompano are readily available in the surf during the spring and fall using the same light tackle. Use a double dropper rig with 1oz spider weight baited with sand fleas on #2-6 kahle hooks. I like to fish two rods wiht one just past where waves are breaking and one as fars as I can throw it. I pick up alot of bull reds on finger nail size sand fleas on outer bar.

Thanks for the info Tc. You too HV. Some of us land lubbers will certainly put some of that knowledge to use. And some of us like myself will probably still not catch anything but hard heads.

TC, I'm debating a weekend fishing trip in Orange Beach but it checked the weather and it's looking iffy. What do think the weather is going to do this weekend?

Good stuff!

When you ask "hows the weather" regarding saltwater fishing what you mean and I what I look for are probably two totally different things. I assume you mean rain, storms, etc...

Thats a secondary concern to me. I first check the tides and wind forecast. The tides looks awesome for this weekend, strong, high and moving well. They will hit high all weekend early to mid morning depending on where you are.


http://tides.rodnreel.com/tides/index.php?st_id=550&day=1407387600



The wind forcast:

http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/fmtbltn.pl?file=forecasts/marine/coastal/gm/gmz630.txt


I look at this but take it with a grain of salt, I mainly watch these:

http://www.mymobilebay.com/stationdata/s...p;StationID=188


If the wind is forecast/blowing W/SW Dauphin Island will be off due to positioning, same thing with fort morgan on an East, Meaher Park on a N/NE and so on and so forth. Middle Bay light will read true all the time cause its in the open.

If its less than 10 Ill go most of the time but my target area will change depending.

As far as the rain, I could care less unless its a huge system moving in. I just know if Im on the water past 2PM I have a chance of getting rained on pretty much everyday in the summer around here.


Hope this helps.

It can be a beautiful bluebird day but if it's windy you're looking at some good seas with no backs to them. I hate wind more than rain.

Thanks man, that does help. I'll fish in rough seas and thunderstorms and don't mind a bit. I'll have the family down and also another couple with young kids so rain could be an issue with them. We understand that it rains a few hrs a day down there anyway but just can't tell if a storm will set in and rain all weekend or just some of the day. The house is small and having 5 kids cooped up might not be worth a wknd trip. The weather channel was showing 50% on Friday, 10% Sat., and 50% for Sunday. Usually if they are calling for 50 or greater, it's a good chance of all day rain on the coast. Thanks again for the help. We will decide tonight.

TC that's some very good info! Thanks for posting. My little bit to add would be fish nights in the hot months with a good current, stronger the better. Live bait will usually out perform dead bait 3:1 and artificials more than 5:1

Also FYI, it's not legal in Florida waters to fish with treble hooks in conjunction with live or dead natural bait when targeting most in or near shore species. Lots of folks don't know that or at least I didn't until a year or two ago. I can't find anything prohibiting it in Alabama waters.

what is some good lures for these fish from a pier.
baracuda
sailfish
King makeral

tube lure or live bait
an offshore boat
live hardtails

I have fished Pensacola, Navarre, OIP, and Panama City piers for 45 years and have even written books on fishing our local piers. First of all, it is possible to catch sailfish and king mackerel with lures such as XRaps, super pogeys, and spoons. Personally, I would use live bait that is almost always available to catch at the piers. Frozen cigar minnows is a great second option. Barracuda do hang around our piers but seldom eat anything that you throw to them. They usually wait until an angler hooks an king or bonita, and will chomp that in half. Cobia fishing in April and tarpon fishing in July are my favorites.

thanks for the suggetions

much appreciate this info, TC. i have a daughter in pensacola, and a son in gulf shores, so i'm down that way a lot. this will greatly simplify things. i've been fishing way too heavy ...

Everything eats shrimp!!

Over 50 nice Kings were landed on the city pier on Monday in PCB.

Thanks for all the help. So..... Where do I stand a good chance of catching a world class Ground Mullet?

Stop it.

Fish the tides and bait presentation is what it is all about. Also don't forget to wash and wash and wash your bass fishing rigs with fresh water as soon as you are done. Saltwater will eat a reel up in a short period of time.

Hey Peach,
I bet me and my Daddy have fished with you on the city pier in PCB. We were regulars for about twenty years. Remember Dan the pier man?

Sounds very familiar. I mostly fish Navarre Pier, but have fished PC pier many times over the years. Fished it regularly when it opened in about 1976 and John and Jerry Simpson ran the pier.

Thanks for the tips guys. I am planning a trip in June with my wife and we are thinking about going down to the Apalachicola bay area. I get up at daylight and the wife usually sleeps in so I am planning on taking my spinning rod with me to find a place to walk the beach or bay shore in the mornings and sling some artificial lures around and see what I might catch and this post will help get me started. I will probably try the live bait on another trip.

Leroy drive over to St George Island while you're at Apalach and fish the bay side on the east end by the church retreat. Live shrimp on a poping cork or I tie my monofilament line to fluorocarbon with about 2' of line then add enough weight at that point to keep the bait off the bottom. Fish the grassy areas on an outgoing morning tide.

We're going to Charleston in March and will be in a place with pier near the folly river and then the folly beach pier.

I'm assuming the gulp shrimp and pogie baits will catch redfish, black drum, and trout. Carolina rigged or bounce on the bottom with a jig head?

If anyone has experience Charleston fishing let me know what you're willing to divulge.

I drag GULPS on a jighead super slow because Im always flounder fishing but reds and trout are the "bycatch".

I love Gulp 4" shrimp best. Here white or glow are my best colors. I fish them the same way as Tc, but I swim them at a medium speed jiggling the rod the whole time. I catch plenty of flounder and some pretty nice reds. The molting color(white and green mix) works good too.

I picked up this method from John Skinner (youtube not his books) and used it quite extensively the summer after I graduated around dauphin island. I used it from the beach as well as from a kayak with limited to no success. I'm curious what areas you fished with this method?

Caveat: I was specifically targeting flounder. I only caught 3 flounder with this method. I was more successful catching specs/reds.

Thread resurrection. How much of the previous info applies to seasons. I.E. if I'm on a family trip at Point Clear the first week of February, what are my options from beach/pier?