Taking the family down this week for a few days. We are staying around Pier Park by the big pier. I’d like to take my 8yr old fishing but I’m lost when it come to keeping up with the trend in salt water. Any suggestions with what we could rig up on beefed up bass tackle for him to catch something? Any help is appreciated.

Paging Peach.

Unfortunately the water has gotten muddy lately which shuts things down. We are also in transition from winter to Spring. Things will pick up in about a month. If the water has cleared up when you get there, I would try fishing the surf for pompano. This is just a dead time for us right now. If I hear of anything, I certainly will let you know.

Thanks Peach. I’ll rig him for Pompano for sure.

There is also weekly blog you can check for the County Pier. Don’t have the link handy but you can Google it. Like Peach said, very hit or miss right now.

Bay County Outdoors - check the pier fishing tab

Thank you

I talked with a friend of mine that fishes the county pier all the time. She said the squid fishing is really good right now but that’s about it. They don’t fight but they sure are good eating. They may sell squid jigs at the pier but half-hitch on Thomas drive will definitely have them.

Thanks Peach. He would get a kick out of catching squid.

They killed the squid yesterday afternoon at the county pier. The county pier is three miles north of the pier at pier park. They also caught a few Spanish and reds. I’m not sure what this rain is going to do to the fishing.

Was it Brenda?

A few kings and at least one tarpon at Okaloosa Pier already.

Yes it was Brenda L.

A friend of mine caught that tarpon. In fifty years of tarpon fishing the piers in NW Florida, that’s the first I’ve ever heard of caught in March. Almost none are caught til June.

Kings show up much earlier than they used to as well. I too fished all the piers fifty years ago (not so much in the last 25 years). We used to see little tunny, blackfin tuna, and Atlantic bonito from February into mid March. Then spanish mackeral, jack crevalle, and cobia. Then kings by May and tarpon by June.

Thats about right. A fifty lb king was caught last week off OIP. The only thing wrong with your post is cobia don’t exist in our area anymore! lol. Cobia was my favorite fish to fish for off the piers. In the late 60’s and 70’s they would catch more cobia in one day than they do a season now!

Cobia was my favorite fish too. I switched to boat fishing for them years ago but now we do not expect to see any at all. We may go once a year just for old time sake. Very sad to see what happened with them.

I'm hoping this is just a 7-10 yr down cycle in the resource and they come back strong in the future. I love seeing them up on the beach. Only luck we've had sight fishing them in the past 5 yrs has been way offshore, as in 3-10 miles offshore. I miss the days of catching them in between the first and second bars up in the skinny water right on the beach. Saw a ton, literally hundreds, of undersized fish last year in the 28-32" range on FADS so I am hoping for the best.

There are plenty of cobia on the east coast and in the west delta of Louisiana. I think they have been conditioned to stay farther out. They used to literally get bombarded on the beach.

Same as DUCKS in Arkansas.....PRESSURE......Mother Nature takes Over!!!!