Thread: First pier trip, see you tomorrow

Hey gang,

This is my first pier trip and my first post to this forum. I've been lurking a while and am impressed with the info and helpfulness on here. I'll be headed down from Birmingham tomorrow and plan to make it to the pier in the afternoon. I'm a total moron when it comes to saltwater fishing, other than what I have gleaned from this site. So if you see a guy wearing a Birmingham Baron's hat that obviously has no idea what he is doing, please feel free to smack me around and point me in the right direction. I would really appreciate it.

I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully it will hook you...no pun intended there

Been there since Tuesday every morning and evening. This morning was pretty intense with lots of kings and jacks being caught. If you can, stay until dark. The last two nights have had huge bull redfish runs with lots of kings and jacks in the mix as well as a fair number of sharks. Around 7 has been the best. Best of luck. I'm headed home to Memphis.

I hope to be there into the night. Should the bite pick up like that, do you have any suggestions on bait/rigs that were working? Thanks.

I, along with most people there, were just free-lining live bait. 6-10 inch wire leader on a swivel with a good sized hook on whatever line you've got. My gear is all light stuff since I'm not from the area, so I had 16lb braid on. Braid is frowned upon though since it tends to cut lines if you get tangled up with someone with a fish on, but I didn't have a choice. It was either 300 yards of braid, or about 200 of mono and I had several fish I got up close that would have spooled me had I been using mono. 20-25lb mono seemed to be the norm. If you've got that high-vis stuff, it's helpful since it makes it MUCH easier to see your line and find out if you need to go over or under the people next to you quickly.

I use a Penn Battle reel with 16 lb mono loaded at J&M Has worked fine for me Just make sure you have the yardage on your line. That's the key try to get close to 300yds of whatever you use. Most any medium heavy rod and reel will do as long as you have the line yardage. Just use a 12-18 in single tran wire leader with a treble hook. If you don't have these or can't twist the wire to make them like I can't J&M has them ready made for $4.00 for two. I've caught everyone of my fish on one of these Get you a small sabiki rig to catch bait and you're in business Good luck

I swear, that 16# Momoi that J&M sells tests closer to 30#. The last couple of sharks I've broken off, I needed help---dang near lifted the sharks out of the water. At least I know my knots were good.

I agree with you Haywire I've had to cut some of my sharks off Can't break the line. Fish can cut it but I haven't had one break it yet May test 30 # but diameter is small enough to where they got 274 yds on the reel Been very pleased with the line so far but I've only been fishing the pier for 9 mos so I'm sure I have much more learning to come. Appreciate your post very much Love to read them