Using the whole length of the pier to catch fish
This entry is about catching the fish that are "in" and biting somewhere along the pier. There are fishermen who have a single "go-to" approach, like either casting Gotchas or bubble rigs for Spanish. It works often, but sometimes the Spanish aren't receptive to being caught (imagine that!). So if you're going to catch something else, you have to use different techniques. And you may want to widen your pier fishing experience.
To be successful, it's often necessary to target species to put the odds in your favor. While flounder and mangrove snappers are often found in different areas of the water column, they can usually be caught with the same baits, namely small LYs, live shrimp or bull minnows. Mangroves are a reef fish, so it's a requirement to fish for them using a relatively small circle hook. Flounder can be caught right on the bottom with a Carolina rig and mangroves are caught anywhere in the water column from the top to the bottom. Now these strategies also pertain to speckled trout, but trout are typically less enthusiastic about bull minnows. I have caught nice trout on bull minnows. This time of year, in the late summer, pesky pinfish and roving gangs of baby jacks and ladyfish can attack your shrimp before any targeted game fish has a chance at it. So, it makes sense to primarily use baits that aren't likely to be savaged by the marauding hordes.
Flounder and mangroves can be found from the surf zone to the octi, while trout are mostly found near in the surf zone. I like to sight-fish for trout with a small LY, known as "trout candy" to fishermen, using a #8 treble hook and I vary the hook placement from the mouth to the pectoral fins, usually. Usually no weight and usually tied directly to my main line, but I sometimes incorporate that 12 pound fluorocarbon leader. You can always add a split shot up the line in dirty water if the fish are staying near the bottom in schools. For redfish, tie directly to the twenty pound test line and use the same line for leader. Redfish aren't line-shy and they love LY.
A really fun way to catch Spanish mackerel from the bathrooms to the octi, is by catching these same small fingerling LYs and tossing them out using a tiny swivel, a short piece of thin wire single-strand leader and a #6 or #8 treble hook. If there are schools of little LYs surfacing and alternately going back under the surface, that's a great clue that feeding Spanish are slashing their way through these schools. Just toss the free-swimming bait, hooked through the pectoral fins (giving it a struggling baitfish profile to the predator fish) near the school and get ready for the bite.
Okay, just one more. I like to use the smallest sabiki rig to catch LYs because both the bigger LYs and the smaller ones can be caught with the same rig. So the way I go for king mackerel is to employ a swivel, that same single-strand wire leader (about 14 inches or so) and a #4 3X strong treble hook attached using a haywire twist. Again, I most often hook the more mature LY through the pectoral fins and cast it way out in a way that doesn't interfere with other fishermen fishing a cast-and-retrieve method (In all of this, it's important to be considerate of other fishermen employing different fishing styles). If kings are in and biting, they'll find my offering appealing. For this approach, I use twenty pound test mono or larger pound braid on a Penn 6000 open face spinning reel.
So far, we've covered an approach (not the only approach) to flounder, redfish, mangrove snappers, speckled trout, Spanish mackerel and King Mackerel. Using the appropriate baits, presented in a way that appeals to the fish, is the main idea. Most fishermen know how to fish for their favorite fish, but may not know how to transition to another desirable species that may be biting. This information is designed to help those folks catch more fish by employing tried-and-true strategies from the surf zone to the octi. Find the fish. Present a good bait to them with the proper rigging, get the fish over the rail and into your cooler. That's the approach, in my estimation that will help the novice fisherman be more successful. Let me know if you like these suggestions and I'll continue on to other species, such as pompano, sheepshead, spadefish, whiting, and small black drum.
