The Merry Pier in Pass-A-Grille provided some great fishing this weekend. Plenty of variety, steady action… and the Pier was surprisingly uncrowded for Memorial Day wwekend.
Snapper- The snaps are back! After a long hiatus, the mangrove snapper are beginning to return to their haunts in the shadows under the Pier. It’s still very early in the season, so they’re running small; but still, out of a couple dozen, there were some foot long specimens. They’ll be joing me for dinner tonight!
Snook- Now that the snook season has shut down, the snook are ready to feed. They key was large, lively shrimp free-lined under the dock as the tides surged outward. The snook tended to be in the shallows, with some literally inches from the seawall. Sizes ranged from about 22″ to over 30″. And, for each snook caught, there were 2-3 that were lost- hey, that’s snook fishing!
Grouper- The grouper bite was slow, but I did manage to pull out a couple of 13-14″ gags from the rocks in the front of the dock. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a legal grouper landed in Pass-A-Grille.
Mackeral- Yeah, there’re still hanging around. Not big schools, but a fish here and a fish there. Seems now that the Macks are running a little bigger than ususal, too. Just wait till the greenbacks come in.
Sheepshead- Yeah, you heard right. Sheepshead. Just when you thought they’d all departed for the summer, I managed to pull a 14″ one from among the Mangos. It was released unharmed.
Trash Fish- Rounding out the mix are the ususal undesireables, including sand perch (aka squirrelfish), pinfish (some actually pretty big), cowfish, etc.
Still too windy for offshore, although the Getaway did go out on a half day and returned with 2 scamp, a gag, and a very healthy mangrove snapper. Maybe later today….
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