Not Crappie but a lot of fun

[arkcrappie]

The wife and I took a little vacation to the Gulf Coast this past week. She wanted to lay out on the beach so I found a pier to fish from. The bull reds were running and I had a blast with them. Those things are like a freight train when they hit. Here's a couple of pics.

[KRAPPIE KG]

Nice pics. Looks like that might be the Gulf Shore bridge. I've caught some reds off it a few years back.

[NIMROD]

Wow! That looks like a blast.

[jackie53]

"wow"

[Billy E]

Thats a hog. How do you get it up on the pier?

[MaggiesMaster]

Looks great! Tell us more! Where, do you buy or rent tackle, best baits, etc.?? We're going to the coast later in the year & this can be a great thing for me to do while wife does something else.

[blueducklane]

Destin pier?

[arkcrappie]

That is the pier at Gulf Shores. Costs $8/day to fish. Make sure you take a wagon or cart to haul your tackle, cooler and rods in as the pier is 2550 feet long. I used my catfish rods (7' rods with a big spinning reel spooled with 30# Cajun Red line) and I did put a 12" steel leader on it. I bought the steel leaders from the Wal-Mart Market at Orange Beach. The steel leaders were Mustad brand, red in color and already had a hook attached. For bait, I caught mine from the pier. The bait fish are little fish, like a shad, with slick skin that are called LY's or hardtails. There's a little bait rig call a Sabiki (sp?) that has small jigs attached that you fish around the pilings with to catch the LY's. I had a light weight spinning rod that I kept rigged just for catching bait and the cat rod stayed rigged for reds. You can only have one rod in the water at a time. Once I caught a couple of LY's, I hooked one through the eye like a minnow and tossed it as far as I could with no weight on windless days or 2 oz. weight on the windy days.

The reds run from about 5 pm to a little after dark and then again in the mornings from about 4:30 to 7 am. Some days they came in better than others.

As far as getting them on the pier, check out that top pick and you will see a guy behind me with a net. It is a round net that has a rope attached that you toss into the water and then pull your fish over it. Once the fish is over the net, you pull up on the rope and pull it up on the pier. It takes 2 people to land one of them, but the people down there were always willing to help. I didn't buy a net, but every time I got a fish on, one of the people with a net would offer to help. I tried to repay the favor by helping them land fish, catch them some bait and even offered to clean some fish for them.

I will be taking my fishing tackle with me again next year for some more of that action. That is the best fighting fish I've ever hooked!!

[RCC]

Great story and information. You can't have that much fun for 8 bucks anywhere.

[Gomer Snerd]

Not since Rosie's in Marked Tree shut down.