Another newbie post

Hey guys love the info on this forum! I am making my 3rd trip down to the ocean on a couple weeks and have gotten more fishing oriented each time. I fish a ton in the river here at home for catfish and big stripers. I am staying at navy cove and am bringing my catfish rod and smaller baitcasters. Any suggestions on where to fish? I am wanting to do a little surf sharking with my big rod and my 9 and 11 year old boys are dying to fish too. Any info you guys could give would be great....feel like I've already learned a ton from just browsing! Thanks!

For surf fishing, the best is just west of you at Mobile Point (entrance to Mobile Bay). If you go inside the park you have a pretty good hike to the point, but really good fishing for bull reds and sharks. For a shorter hike there is an abandoned road on the left (beachside) just before you enter the park. DO NOT LEAVE THE PAVED SURFACE if you have 2 wheel drive, but you can get to within a couple of hundred yards of the beach.

BTW, where are you from? There's a handy spot on the registration to let us know.

Just updated my profile, I'm in Central Arkansas. Thanks!

Also, Navy Cove basin can have some pretty good white trout fishing at night under the lights after about 10:00 + a few specks. Use small jig heads and small plastic bodies on light line. Your younger kids may want to use shrimp or jigs under a popping cork.

Be very quiet. If you catch a few and then they stop just wait 20-30 minutes or so for them to settle back down and bite again.

Keep an eye out for gators in the ponds to the east, on occasion they come into the basin at night looking for scraps.

Careful driving on no name road. We gave it a try one morning and found that it becomes impassable after maybe halfway unless you have a high sitting 4WD. To make things worse, there is no way to turn around...so your options are to jump a two foot drop off or reverse the whole distance.

That aside, nearly every N-S road seems to have access to beach for some great surf fishing. I can't tell you where, because I assume the sand bars have changed since May. Walk down the beach looking for promising sand bar structure and give it a try.

The marina at mile 2 (tacky jacks II) has live shrimp. For fresh dead shrimp go towards gulf shores to the Fresh Market seafood. It's by the dollar general and a gas station on the north side of the road.

Good luck, hope you put the kids on some good fishing!

Mattb is right on about Gulf side fishing from many points at Ft. Morgan. We often use the satellite images from Google to zoom in on select locations, looking for breaks in the first sand bar, holes, points or anything different along the surf front. Good luck and smooth drags to y'all.

Thanks for the info...also, my wife wants to eat something we catch so what should I be looking to keep and cook?

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Originally Posted by coachzac

Thanks for the info...also, my wife wants to eat something we catch so what should I be looking to keep and cook?

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I don't think you can go wrong with whiting, fairly easy to catch and taste great. I just fillet, bread them and fry them up. Everybody in my family really likes them.

Hardtails (Blue Runner) are often plentiful, always feisty and mighty good pan-fried in a little olive oil with light salt/pepper and a dash of Greek seasonings ;-)

Baked pompano is excellent as well.