Holy Mackerel!

Location: Russell- Fields Pier - Panama City Beach, Florida

Time: 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Air Temperature: 91 Degrees
Water Temperature: 

Lake Level: 

Weather Conditions:

After the luck we had yesterday, Sean and I were eager to get back out today and try our luck. We decided to stop in the shallows first and try sharks. We stopped by Half Hitch takes again geared up with some more tackle and bait.

I hadn’t had a cigar minnow floating for 5 minutes when a shark hit me hard and started spooling off line. It was a hell of a fight! I got it close to the pier and Sean landed it with our net. It was at least 3.5 ft long. We again had a hell of a crowd around us watching and we let the kids take pictures and touch the shark.

We moved on towards the end of the pier and tried again for some gamefish. As we approached, fisherman had mackerel and Bonita on the line. We set up and I quickly lost my cigar minnow bait. I told Sean I was going to move and try the other side. I walked over and launched a cast. After about 2 minutes, I felt tension and reeled my line tight. As soon as I did, I felt pressure and set the hook. Fish on!! I’m not sure what it is at this point, but it is taking line fast and swimming like a torpedo. I’m not sure if I even have enough line on my reel, but I manage to slow it down and gain some line on it.  I fight to for probably 20 minutes and worked the whole end of the pier trying to keep it under control. Finally, it surfaces near the pier and we see that it is a very nice King Mackerel! Another fisherman comes up with a gaff and helps me hook it and pull it up.

We land it on the pier and Holy Mackerel! It’s nice. A 44” King weighing 17 lbs!! We pose for some more photos with spectators and let some kids touch the fish. What an amazing experience! After the crowd heads out, Sean and I head out to clean the fish. Dinner is on us!

SHARKS!

Location: Russell- Fields Pier - Panama City Beach, Florida

Time: 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Air Temperature: 91 Degrees
Water Temperature: 

Lake Level: 

Weather Conditions:

Decided to change things up a bit and fish outside my TN River Valley freshwater comfort zone. We’ve fished both inshore and offshore saltwater before but never surf/pier fished. Sine we were going to be in PCB, I thought we’d give it a try.

I packed my heaviest spinning gear I use for big cats and all my heavy tackle. I wasn’t really sure what I would need.  I met my brother-in-law, Sean, and we headed out around lunch to see if we could watch what the crowd was doing on Russell-Fields Pier.

We observed the crowd was using rod and reels much like we brought. Most were using cigar minnows and other caught baitfish and were targeting King Mackerel, Spanish Mackerel, Cobia, and Bonita. There were floating the bait on steel leaders with treble hooks and a trailer treble. There weren’t event using weights. We watched for about and hour and saw several mackerel landed and one sand shark. We were pumped and decided to head back for lunch and gear up at the pier tackle shop, Half Hitch.

Half Hitch is al excellent tackle shop outfitted with everything you need to pier or surf fish. We bought some steel leaders and trebles, some cigar minnows and squid, and a pier net and headed out.

We started out on the end of the pier fishing with one floating rig and one bottom rig. I quickly realized the bottom rig with squid was futile. The small baitfish were tearing the squid clean before any decent fish could find it. Sean was fishing a floating cigar minnow like most of the crowd. Shortly after we got there, people were landing nice mackerel, but the dolphins moved in and were ripping the mackerel off the hooks as fishermen reeled them in or left nothing but a head and carcass. We had a tough time catching anything after the dolphins moved in, so we moved back down the pier towards the shallows and spotted some sharks, so we set up again and targeted sharks.

We fished the same floating cigar minnow rigs and quickly started getting hits. Sean got a couple good tugs and then I saw a shark hit it and run. It put up one hell of a fight, but he managed to land it. I pulled it up by the line. It was awesome! It was about a  3 feet sand shark. We drew a crowd and let the kids take pictures and touch the shark’s sand-paper like skin. Everyone was amazed that we caught one.

Soon after, I got a good hit and a shark took off with my line and had my drag smoking. I reached up to try to tighten it down and was literally burned by it spinning so fast. I fought it for a good while and finally managed to get it to the pier. Another fisherman saw me fighting it and brought his pier net over to help me land it. It was about a 3.5 ft long sand shark! It has always been a dream of mine to land a shark, so I can finally check that off the list. We again let the kids take pictures and touch the shark and let it go again.

We decided we’d end on a good note and heard back in for the evening and try again tomorrow. What an experience!

Night Time Jug Lines

Location: Joe Wheeler State Park and 2nd Creek

Time: 5:00 PM - 2:00 AM
Air Temperature: 90 Degrees
Water Temperature: 85 Degrees

Lake Level: 

Weather Conditions: Slight to Moderate winds from the south.

Fished with Doug and Douglas Ainsworth tonight. I got there early to try to catch live bluegill to use to target flatheads. I fished blown over tops with worms and a bobber and managed to catch 14 with Doug’s wife, Shirley.

Douglas dropped 16 jugs at dark along the south shore of Wheeler with fresh cut shad. I dropped 6 along the north west bend then we headed to 2nd creek to drop the rest. We went north of the boat landing at 2nd Creek and dropped 8 more jugs in 8-12 feet of water as the creek narrowed just before the bend. All of these had live bluegill on the bottom hook and cut shad on the top. We dropped 6 more off the rocky point out from the boat landing and baited these the same way and returned to Wheeler.

After a couple hours, we checked my first 6 in wheeler and found a 4 ft long gar, but no cats. We ran back to 2nd Creek and ran the group of 8. We caught one nice blue and found one jug had run away from the others. When we pulled it, it had been tangled over and over around a sunken tree. We managed to pull the entire tree up and untangle it. I can only imagine a flathead did this. We ran the other group of six and caught one more small cat. We also found one more jug had a broken line.

We headed back to Wheeler and pulled Douglas’s jugs. We caught one more small cat. We found 15 of the sixteen pretty easily. We were watching the last one in the spotlight as it was pulled under and it never came back up. It had to have been a big fish. We searched for a good while but never found it.

Overall, it was a blast and a good learning experience for nighttime jug fishing. I think I would repeat the bluegill tactic next time, but concentrate a little more around the creeks and fallen structure. Will definitely do it again soon!