Thread: New Member

I am a new member to this site and am very empressed at how helpful the regular members are to the novice pier fisherman.
My wife and I plan on making a trip to the GSP this fall. We fish alot but all freshwater. My wife caught a 63# blue cat drifting
a goldfish two years ago Labor day. We fish ABU 6500s on med and med/hvy Ugly Stick Tigers with 40 # Big Game mono so
I think our tackle will pass for now.
This trip is going to be a change of pace for us. A chance to get away from work, baby sitting grandbabies, the garden, and all
our animals. We just want to get away and have a good time and maybe catch a mess of fish to carry home for a fish fry.
I am learning about saltwater fish and fishing by reading this site. We are both very excited about our trip.
I have a lot of questions and I am getting a lot answered just by reading others posts. Thanks Poppa

Just curious. Where were u fishing that it is legal to use goldfish for bait. The river i fish it is illegal to use goldfish

I live in Jefferson County, Al. I fish mainly Guntersville, Wheeler, and Bankhead Lakes. Some bait stores in this area sell goldfish and Black Saltys.
Fisherman that fish for salt water stripe and catfish use this big live bait along with live and cut shad and skip jacks.
I checked before I made this post to be certain that I did not post bad info. I could not find anywhere in the state regs. that stated that goldfish
were an illegal as bait. As a matter of fact the regs. state that the only minnows that are legal for state owned public lakes are goldfish, tuffies,
and shiners.

Your 6500 is not the best choice for fishing the pier the way we do it. Filling it with 40# mono isn't the way to make it a more acceptable choice. Garcia claims its capacity to be 245 yards of 14# mono, which would be extremely marginal in terms of capacity for an experienced pier angler to handle a big fish with. Packed full of 40 you may have maybe 80-90 yards of line on your reel, of which a good sized fish will take all of it on its initial run. You could tighten down your drag in an attempt to prevent this from happening, but that isn't a good idea since your line will break or you'll pull the hook from the fish.

If I were limited to using an ABU6500 there would two different ways I'd rig it for pier fishing. The first way I'd rig it would be with straight 12-17# mono and target primarily Spanish mackerel using jigs, spoons, Gotcha plugs, bubble rigs and the like.
The other way would be to have about 250-300 yards of 20# braid as backing, with a top shot of mono in the same size as in the first option.

DRH I see what you mean. I was not even thinking about getting spooled on that initial run. I am use to fish going deep and the fight is trying to
get them to the surface. I am not use to one taking off like a race horse leaving the gate.LOL
I have two ABU 7000 that carry a good bid more line than the 6500s. The 7000s are spooled with 40# mono to but might respool with like 25#.
I have a couple of Penn 209s that are good for drop fishing in current and drifting but they are not the best casters.
My best bet might be to try to pick up a couple of large capacity spinning reels to be my salt water reels.
I plan to have some lighter tackle set ups for flounder, croakers and white trout and such. And I know that there are fish as big as pick-up trucks
out there and anybody can get spooled or broke off at any time but for your big rig for pier fishing what do most people use as far as line weight
and spool capacity. Thanks

IMHO the best set up would be a reel that can hold about 300 yards of 15-16lb mono. the amount of line is way more important than the test because you want to fight the fish and tire him away from the pier. If you bring him to the pier to green you will more likely loose him to the pylons.
however as of lately with all of the toothy critters(sharks) lurking you can't
leave them in the water too long.

The most I use is 30# mono on my cobia reel. That's about as heavy as it gets with the exception of a few people I know that fish 60# braid on their cobia setups. You could use 15-20# mono on the 7000s and still be fine. You would have plenty of capacity and enough line strength yo handle just about anything out there. For pier fishing, you want to let the fish run and tire out, that way they are pretty much belly up when they get to the pier and you don't have to put much pressure on them.

I had an Ambassaduer 7000 back in the 1970s and put 20# mono on it to pier fish.
It's the reel I caught my first tarpon on but it was BARELY adequate for the job.
That fish took me to the spool three times, once with only 5 wraps left ???
I caught a LOT of kings and jacks on it, but that tarpon really put it to the test.

Poppa 25# might do the job, but there may may not be enough of it either.
Since you have two you might try one with 25# and one with 20# to see what works best for you.

:fishing:

Very few use more than 20# line and less than 300 yards of it on our bigger tackle. Some like to use heavier line for cobia, but they have a short seasonal run and most who target them have cobia specific tackle. I personally use a 560L Penn spinning reel with 300 yards of 20# spectra braid backing with about 125 yards of 16# mono.
For your big rig the 7000 would be a much better option than the 6500 and I would suggest 15-20# line on it. Throwing a relatively light life bait may be difficult with a baitcaster. You'd have to be your own judge whether your skill level is adequate to handle the task, but be advised that it is much more difficult than it may seem due to the elevation of the pier and practically total exposure to the wind which can get fairly high. The fact that your open to the notion of a high capacity spinning reel leads me to suggest that you go that route.

Poppa---Lots of good advice above. I'd suggest you go by J&M Tackle in Orange Beach and tell the what you want to do and how much you want to spend and they'll set you right up. I don't own stock in them, it's just that they are very knowledgeable and helpful folks and their prices are competitive with anybody's. We all look forward to meeting you.

Nice catch on the big cat, by the way.