Thread: Heads up in cigs

Non have been caught this year and with snapper season opening tomorrow, they are going to dry up quick.

Just curious. What happened to the cigs? Up here the Mississippi flooding has some local shops scrambling for new suppliers, but as someone said "it's a big ocean."

It is indeed a big body of water, but the GoM isn't that large and the Mississippi River is close enough to have affected our salinity levels all along the Mississippi, Alabama and NW Florida coastal region. Even offshore anglers have been remarking about water clarity issues (which often translates to low salinity).
This has likely kept the cigar minnows and other common baitfish (sardines and threadfin herring) from their usual spring haunts...


What we are seeing now though is an unusually high number of halfbeaks.
https://www.fishbase.se/summary/Hyporhamphus-meeki.html
Many anglers are erroneously calling them "ballyhoo". Which is understandable since they are shaped similarly.
But halfbeaks are inshore forage fish that have a distinctive red or orange tip on their lower jaw...



They do make good snobbling baits for mackerel though (especially large spanish and small kings).
Thousands have grouped around the GSPPier this week.
Mostly found on the down current side which makes them fairly easy to catch on small sabiki or gold hook rigs.

Back in '95 I think, Aron and Opal hit and destroyed the grassy bottom that cigs like to spawn according to the Raffields as I was told twenty years ago. Same thing happened last year.

Sad how nature works and we take it for granted....hope things get better

There had been a bunch of the half beaks around for a couple of days. I caught, brined and vacuum packed 66 of them. Thanks for the clarification #'r, I was calling them ballyhoo also.

arvest locations near me

Beaks removed for packing/freezing

I saw a small school go by the draw this afternoon but by the time I grabbed my Sabiki they were gone.

BTW, fishing was slow.