Gulf Shores Trip Day Two

Today was 81 degrees, calm and sunny here at the beach. The tide is just on the last day of neap tide and will start moving much better for the rest of the week. I watched the kids this morning so Brook could sleep in till 9 am, but then it was out to the beach with the whole herd to fish and swim for the rest of the day.

My sisters and sister in law with all of their kids are all down here for a couple more days. Lots of cousins to play with on the beach and lots of kids to reel in fish. The fishing was fairly slow, but we did catch some real nice pompano, whiting, and lady fish. The pompano were the biggest surprise to show up today. They are spectacular table fare, wonderful to eat, great tasting, and very pleasing to my taste buds.

Here is Noah with the first pompano! You can see how calm the sea was today:



Tyden got to reel in the second one! He was happy for the pic, but I told him not to smile so much and this is what we ended up with:



Shaeya didnt get to reel this one in, but she really wanted to be on the website. Grandpa greg got this one:



Barb landed the last pompano of the day. It was a beast of a fish!


We also caught some nice ladyfish from the beach. They taste like poop mixed with feces sprinkled with diarhea, but they sure are fun to catch. They jump and run and are just great fun.




We had a few fish break off our lines, which is pretty typical. A few teethy bluefish and a shark. We also had a 50 lb stingray up to the beach, but didnt want to bring it all the way in. The kids were pretty excited to see that baby!

We caught the fish today using dead shrimp and cut up pinfish for bait. Waves were calm so we didnt need much weight. We just plopped the rods into the rod holders and sat back and relaxed on the beach all day long.

About 6 pm we packed everything in and headed inside. Brook and my sisters went out for dinner while us boys stayed back and watched the kids and made our own dinners. Fresh pompano sandwiches seasoned with garlic pepper and butter. Topped with cheese and a bit of tartar sauce on toasted bread is as good as it gets. Well, actually served with a side of fried cajun crawdaddy's is as good as it gets!

I actually cook the pompano fillets in the microwave. Sounds kind of crazy, but I learned that recipe a few years back while staying overnight in a fairly small 30 foot boat out on the ocean 100 miles from shore. We had a microwave on board, some seasonings, a loaf of bread, and 100's of lbs of fresh fish. Just simply season the fillets, cook them for 3 minutes, add your cheese and cook them for 20 more seconds. Thats it. Try it! Here are some pics:

Here are those fried crawdads from the seafood joint about 150 yards down the beach!


I ate so much fish and crawdads that I couldnt even take a bite of the ice cream everyone else was eating. Fat and Happy, those two words just sum things up real nice.

Tomorrow the tides start moving and that will hopefully get the redfish fired up! I will be out well before the sun comes up trying to hook up with a Beast! I have a deep hole scoped out about 100 yards down the beach from the condo that I will be fishing. Saturday morning I will head out to fish the little lagoon pass because the water will be pouring out into the gulf first thing in the morning. Tomorrow will be a bit better fishing than today, but Saturday should be the day to spend actively fishing!