Now there's a fish story. Imagine hooking into a record swordfish and fighting it all the way in - nearly 4 hours of fighting. When you land him, you find out he's not only a record, he's a record by nearly 100 pounds. He's over 25% bigger than the previous record.
Don't let anyone tell you the fishing hasn't been good this year along the Alabama Gulf Coast.
Come to think of it, the fishing hasn't been good along the Alabama Gulf Coast this year. The fishing has been great on the Alabama Gulf Coast this year.
Swordfish sets Alabama record
It's time again for the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources photo contest.
Early fall is just about the best time for photographing Alabama's great outdoors. Nature photographers can gain recognition for their work by entering Outdoor Alabama magazine's 2007 Photo Contest.
Winning entries will be published in the February 2007 issue of the magazine, which is published by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
All photos must have been taken in Alabama within the last two years. Wildlife and plant species must be native to the state. Eligible formats include high quality digital images, 35mm slides or larger format transparencies, and 5x7-inch to 8x10-inch color prints.
The 12th Annual Orange Beach October Fishing Rodeo will take place October 1st though the 31st. The tournament this year will take on a new look which more closely matches the highly successful Orange Beach Red Snapper World Championship.
Anglers will compete in 5 offshore categories and 2 inshore categories. The top 3 places in gag grouper, amberjack, king mackerel, red snapper, triggerfish, redfish, and speckled trout will be awarded $2,000, $1,000 and $500 respectively. The total purse will amount to $24,500. Orange Beach October Fishing Rodeo organizers hope the increased payouts for top places will draw a larger crowd of anglers to the event.
Hughes, Laramy have best luck during opener
Two Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup Championship berths on the line today in Redfish Nation Series Championship finaleORANGE BEACH -- The anglers in the Redfish Nation Series Championship this weekend at The Wharf realize luck has a lot to do with the outcome, which will send two teams to the Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup Championship in October.
It may not necessarily be the number of fish you catch -- if you catch two that is -- it's the size. The teams in the championship are allowed to weigh in two redfish between 16 and 26 inches (Alabama's slot limit). Of course, there are skinny 26-inchers and fat 16-inchers. The magic is in finding two fat fish near that magic 26 inches.
It's getting to be that time of year again. The birds up north are fattening up, fighting over available food stores, getting ready to head south for the winter.
All along the Gulf Coast birders are preparing for the grand migration. Everywhere along the Gulf Coast birding events are scheduled. The event described here centers on the ruby-throated hummingbird. Stay tuned, we'll chronicle these events as they are announced. It's sure to be a great year for birding along the Gulf Coast.
River of hummingbirds
Tiny birds pass through La. on way to winter groundsLAFAYETTE -- A little sugar water is all one needs to catch a glimpse of some of the millions of hummingbirds passing through Louisiana to winter homes south of the border.
“What we have now is a river of hummingbirds flowing through Louisiana,†said Dave Patton, a Lafayette hummingbird enthusiast who has a federal license to band the birds with tiny aluminum bracelets to help track migration patterns.
September is the most active month in south Louisiana for the ruby-throated hummingbird, the main species seen in the state.
The birds flew north across the Gulf of Mexico in the spring to breed in the eastern half of the United States, from Louisiana to as far as southern Canada.
The tiny hummingbirds — or “hummers†as birders call them — are flittering around flowers and feeders to fatten up for the return trip to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
“They’ll double their body weight. You can see them do it,†said Bill Fontenot, an avid birder and curator at the Acadiana Park Nature Station.
Fontenot said the birds will go from about 3.2 grams to 5 grams, about the weight of a nickel.
Unlike the spring migration across the Gulf, many ruby-throats are thought to migrate in the fall along the coast, from Louisiana through Texas and then south instead of taking the perilous day-long trip across open water, Fontenot said.
“The entire eastern population, we believe, flies south to the Gulf Coast and hangs a right. … Most of us believe they all funnel through Louisiana and east Texas,†Fontenot said.
The fall migration pattern is a boon for Louisiana birders, because the state not only hosts the ruby-throats that nested here, but also their offspring hatched over the summer and birds from the north passing through on their way south.
“That’s why it’s such a phenomenon in southwest Louisiana,†Fontenot said. “It’s not at all unusual to find 50 birds in one yard.â€
Patton said many of the birds might be in a particular yard only for a day before continuing along the migration journey.
Mark your calendar. This year's Alabama Coastal BirdFest promises to be the biggest and best ever.
The 2006 Alabama Coastal BirdFest takes place the weekend of October 19-22. This year’s BirdFest will include nearly 20 great tours to prime birding spots on the 240-mile long Alabama Coastal Birding Trail. There will be two exciting evening events plus a free day-long Bird & Conservation Expo.
This year we are repeating some of our most popular tours from past festivals, and adding something new. We have three new tours to Dauphin Island that include an excursion on Mobile Bay on the Dauphin Island Sea Lab research vessel, the A.E. Verrill, a 65-foot ocean-going craft. Not only will we see the birds of Mobile Bay, but marine biologists from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab will be with us to examine specimens caught in a trawl. - John Borom, president of Mobile Bay Audubon Society
At BirdFest’s opening night reception on Thursday, Oct. 19th, a panel of three distinguished ornithologists will discuss Hurricanes & Habitat: How Wildlife Survives. The panel includes
Registration for the 2006 Alabama Coastal BirdFest is now open.