We launched a few hundred yards from the ferry dock at the
end of Fort Morgan road. Emily has been
asking all year for a snapper trip and it has been hard to coordinate agreeable
seas and weather for a small boat trip.
The launch is on the north side of the peninsula and drops you straight
into the south end of Mobile Bay. We headed
west from the dock and charted a course for Dixie Bar and the Southeast out
into the resting waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
We slipped past the now sleeping fort, where many bloody battles were
fought some even predating the civil war to when it was known as Fort
Bowyer. In 1834 the construction was
completed on the now standing star shaped fort.
The big guns were
quite on this night but the distant thunder made me think a little. Seeing the yellow buoy marking the final resting
place of Tecumseh, the monitor ship that lays resting on the sandy bottom,
where it struck a floating mine during the civil war. The same battle the phrase “Damn the
Torpedo’s, full speed ahead” was yelled.
We entered the gulf and had a star filled sky with no
moon. The oil rigs with flames blazing
dotted the horizon. We found a bumpy
ride waiting after crossing Dixie Bar into the deeper water heading south. Fishing the Gulf of Mexico at night has a
totally different feeling than a day trip.
We passed up several drilling platforms and headed out to deeper
water. After a 40 minute boat ride we settled
in for some fishing.
We use a 10’ homemade rig hook to connect with the oil
platform. The 10’ gives me the needed
distance to keep the suction of the rig from pulling our vessel into it rusty
supports. We began dropping bait to
depths of 50’ and the bite was aggressive.
Emily landed her first Red Snapper and she was all smiles from
there.
She caught several species including Bonita, Blue Fish, and Black
Tip Sharks, but the Red Snapper was by far the best table fare so we released
the other fish and hoped for some King Mackerel.
The Kings never showed even though we pulled out all the
tricks including drift lines and balloon drifts. The key to fishing these rigs is water
depth. The 20’-60’ depth’s tend to
produce more cull fish. I normally try
to find at least 65’ of water and it produces a better variety of table fare
including Snapper, Grouper and Trigger Fish.
In these water depths King Mackerel and Spanish Mackerel are prevalent
as well.
For questions or
comments about fishing the gulf find me on the SeeMeHunt app for apple products
and android devices. Or you can reach me online at www.seemehunt.com or on my blog at www.rarebreedwhitetailhunting.blogspot.com
Shelby Byrd
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