Thread: ground mullet, whiting or whatever ya call um

On Monday, the Mrs, son Marc and I headed to Dauphin Island to try our luck with Kinkfish, locally known as whiting or ground mullett. We got a late start but managed to get to Harry Jemisons at the cutoff around 10:00. Bought a couple of pounds of 21/25 white shrimp (Harry always has the good stuff) and headed towards the west end of the Island. Stopped at St. Stephens and lugged the stuff to the beach. In short order, we were hauling in one after the other. Even managed to catch a good sized dink. After filling the cooler, we came home but not before stopping by again to get a couple pounds more shrimp for gumbo. I've known Harry for 55 years. Knew his parent and grand parents. He's a shrimperman to the bone. I've missed the Island. Gulf State Park Pier has been my fishing place for 6 seasons now but it was nice ta know the fish didn't quit on me.

Sarge , Man sounds like you and your crew did a job on the whiting . Not surprised since you had the best crew around !
Good to see a post from you .

Thanks buddy! So glad to hear from you too! We had a blast fishing the other day and walked away with a good mess of whiting. Nearly all were medium to large. Shrimp was the bait. They bit right in the roughest part of the surf. Hope ta hear soon of good fishing on the pier. Anxious to get back.

They are still everywhere, catch as many as you care to clean. Also picked up a bull, interesting fight on my ultra light setup

What are LY's ?
I'm coming down the week after Thanksgiving. Been reading up on how to catch whiting. Already got the car half packed.

"LYs" are our most common baitfish on the pier.
Two VERY similar looking species of herring named Scaled herring and False herring.
They commonly go by a variety of colloquial names "Scaled sardine, sardine, greenback, pilchard, Alewife (misnomer actually), LY (a southern mispronunciation of alewife)...


Speaking of misnomers (and getting back on topic ;-) there are actually three similar looking species of king croaker or kingfish commonly and collectively called "whiting and ground mullet".
They are Gulf kingfish, Southern kingfish and Northern kingfish...


Hope this helps!

Originally Posted by sknhgy

What are LY's ?
I'm coming down the week after Thanksgiving. Been reading up on how to catch whiting. Already got the car half packed.

Fished the pier for the first time last week. Friday whiting were biting all day and Saturday hundreds of croaker being caught. I discovered what I will be doing when I retire. Future pier rat. Loved it.

Do they also call them poagies? I caught some of those last year with my cast net and everybody wanted some.
Those LY's look like freshwater shad. Croakers, to me, look like what we call drum or white perch.
I'm getting excited thinking about being on vacation. My mind has already left.

Originally Posted by sknhgy

Do they also call them poagies? I caught some of those last year with my cast net and everybody wanted some.
Those LY's look like freshwater shad. Croakers, to me, look like what we call drum or white perch.
I'm getting excited thinking about being on vacation. My mind has already left.

Croakers are in the drum family, and look like thinner freshwater drum. The "big ugly" black drum and redfish (red drum) are the heavyweights of the clan around here.


To confuse things, common names get applied locally in different ways. I've heard "poagies" applied to menhaden or bunker, but what it is used for where you are from I cannot say. I was sad to find that "kingfish" from the beach off OBX were ground mullet and not king mackerel and "stripers" in northern Illinois refers to yellow bass.

Is the Northern Kingfish found in Alabama? I don't think I have caught one of those. Also it seems like the ground mullet fight a little harder than the whiting of the same size but that might be my imagination, regardless both are great fish, fairly easy to catch, don't need expensive gear, pulls hard, and taste really good. Don't get much better than that.