We're not quite there yet. The water isn't cooled off enough for the really good fishing. Give it a few days/weeks and Gulf Shores fishing will really start to take off.
Fish staging, getting ready for fall activity
The weather has been teasing us with hints of fall, but it hasn't given us that significant front needed to really trigger the fishing activity in the area.
Don't get me wrong, the 80s sure beat the heck out of the 90s, but the water temperatures haven't cooled enough to send the fish into the early fall fishing mode.
Capt. Earl Cornelius said the fish are staging nicely on the flats south of the Causeway.
"The problem is there are so many buck trout out there, it's hard to cull through them to find a keeper," Cornelius said. "I went to all my favorite places with a Glad Shad MirrOlure and DOA under a popping cork and caught tons of fish, but I really only had a handful that were worth talking about -- a 3½ (pounder), a 3 and a 2½.
"It's going to take some cool weather to really get it going. I'd say right now we're about 30 days from the prime fall fishing."
More evidence that the estuary fishing is right around the corner is the fact the small speckled trout and redfish are starting to move into Fish and Magnolia rivers on the Eastern Shore.
Speaking of the Eastern Shore, the folks who live and fish along that stretch of Mobile Bay are celebrating an excellent year of fishing.
Dr. Doug Harrell, a Fairhope dentist, said this year offered glimpses of the bay's heyday.
"I've caught more mullet this summer with my cast net than I can remember," Harrell said. "I caught 56 with one throw. We've had lots of fish fries with fresh mullet. And I've shaken a lot of fish out of the net.
"And you can see crabs on the pilings and along the bulkheads. How many years has it been since you've seen that? That just shows you what a little conservation can do."
Right now, the news is kind of slim. The rain events of the past several days have kept most of the fishermen off the water.
The rain, however, has helped the freshwater fishing, which was suffering under the high salinity levels.
As for the offshore fishing, the action continues to be good. The Thierry boats out of Dauphin Island caught a mako shark, wahoo, dolphin and released swordfish and marlin.