Gulf Shores Day Two Fishing State Pier

We headed to the Gulf Shores State Pier at 7 am Saturday morning. Neap tide and very calm seas so we knew the only hope of catching a fish would be first thing in the morning. Katy connected on this big bull red on her first cast!


She was using a dead shrimp tipped with a hard piece of my dad's special home cured shrimp for bait and casted underneath the pier and bamm!! We thought maybe just maybe the fishing would be good, but we only ended up catching three sheepshead over the next 2 hours.


We headed in about 9 am and spent the rest of the day swimming, walking, playing and laying on the beach. Fresh Sheepshead sandwiches for lunch! It was 76 degrees and sunny with not much breeze. Absolutely perfect day.

Here is a pic from the pier looking back:

Oh yeah, also along on this trip are my sisters and all their kids, several of their friends and all their kids, and my good friends from Georgia, Greg and Wendy Grimes and their kids. Everyone had a blast today! Drake is basically in heaven. He explored all day long, never cried once, even when he got lots of sand in his eyes, mouth, ears, hair, etc. Even after I let him fall down in the waves a few times to learn a tad bit of fear, never a peep. He is rock solid and total MAN!! Noah is 100 times more girly and fearfull than Drake is. (Sorry Noah, but some day when you can read this blog will probably no longer exist).

So all the girls have cameras out taking pics of their kids doing this and doing that and doing the other thing. My camera only comes out when there are fish or animals or food involved.

Here is a pic of me and Drake feeding the seagulls our leftovers:


Tonight we went to De Sotos Seafood restaurant with Greg and Wendy. The ladies gobled up paneed grouper with Bernice sauce and the boys gobled down shrimp. Shrimp is pretty much my favorite food on planet earth. Greg pops into my blog every now and then, and said his office manager was reading my blog the other day and was very impressed with all the food pictures and descriptions. OK so maybe he didnt use the actual words "very impressed" but basically that was what he was implying that she was saying........Needless to say no food pictures for Greg's office manager tonight!

So originally this trip was planned as a quick getaway from Friday to Tuesday. Basically that was how I could justify going, but we and the kids are having such a good time and the weather is forecasted to be 80 and sunny for the rest of the week. Anyhow I am making the necessary arrangements to stay through Friday cause this would just be a shame to go home so soon.

Plus the neap tide of Saturday and Sunday will turn into the best tides of the year for Tuesday thru Thursday.

Gulf Shores Alabama Day One

We finally left at 2 am on Friday morning headed for Gulf Shores! It is a 14 hour drive and me and the kids were so anxious to get there we drove straight through. At one point in the trip, Mae was so excited to get to the beach she said please don't go inside to get food that will take way too long, lets just go through the drive thru! She wanted to make the beach before nightfall!

My parents and Justin and Katy went down a couple days earlier so as I am driving down they kept sending me picture texts of fish they were catching right off the beach in front of my Grandma's condo and also at the Gulf Shores State Pier.






So one thing you will notice is they may catch some nice fish without me present, but the fish photo quality will at least go up tremendously once I show up with my camera.

Anyhow we pulled in about 4 pm and headed straight for the beach!! Mae, Noah, and Drake headed right for the water! Man did it ever feel good to be on Vacation!!! I know the area pretty good since I have been going there pretty much every year since I was born.

Fishing is great right off the beach. Naturally we got done swimming and started fishing as the sun started setting. Drake is really into all things outdoors and he especially loves fishies! He wants to be outside 24/7 even when its dark. He just hates inside and always wants to be out. Gets kind of annoying to always have to deal with him wanting to be outside everytime he hears a door open or close, but down deep my heart beats happily knowing outdoors is where he truly wants to be! This boy is gonna far outshine his daddy someday...... I was so proud I had to take tons of pictures:







So we went in at dark and ate the fresh whiting we caught. The fish was accompanied nicely by some Shrimp and Crayfish appetizers from Bahama Bobs just down the road!

Saturday and Sunday the fihsing wont be very good, because it is neap tide. That means not much tidal movement at all. Neap tide is basically God's gift to all the little fish in the Ocean. When the tide doesnt move, big fish dont chase after little fish. Little fish can take a couple days rest, but come Monday we are going to start filling up our coolers with fresh fish!!!

We will still fish on Saturday and Sunday, because we are addicted, but we wont fish much or hard. Fishing is sooo much better when the tide is moving. When the tide isnt moving we will swim and sleep and watch football. Oh yeah, we will consume lots of freshly caught fish and also lots of local seafood like Cajun Crayfish!!

Big Bluegill Fishing Video

Here is a bluegill fishing video we made with Hook and Hunt TV this summer at Otter Creek Preserve.

For those who don't know, bluegill fishing is my favorite freshwater fish to fish for. Next on my list is crappie, then yellow perch, walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, hybrid striped bass, trout, salmon, catfish, carp, rock bass, white bass, drum, suckers, creek chubs, then finally at the bottom of my list is muskie and largemouth bass. Anybody else feel that way too or are you all muskie or bass fisherman?

Anyhow here is the bluegill fishing video:


Also this summer they made a bunch more videos while fishing out there:

David Reyes Tequila and Fish Stocking

On Friday, I was working on figuring out a very intensive fish mgmt plan on a very interesting lake up near Victoria, Il. The goal of this 15 acre lake is to carry world class caliber fish of multiple species. Typically its very easy to create a trophy fishery of one or two species of fish with a couple bonus species here and there, but this lake is different. The goal of this lake is to create trophy fisheries all in the same body of water for Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Hybrid Striped Bass, Walleye, Tiger Muskie, Crappie, Bluegill, Catfish, and Rainbow Trout.

Not an easy task, but possible. I've been scratching my head the last couple nights thinking about the exact ways to achieve this specialized fishery for this exact situation. I do my best thinking when I am about 70% sleeping and 30% partially conscious.

Anyhow, the lake we have been working on for a couple years and the backbone infrastructure is in place with some big fish already, but now the plan is to go way beyond natural management strategies and capacities and really create a showcase lake.

Here are some pics from this lake over the years:





So while I am there I meet an interesting fella in town from Mexico. The guys name is David Reyes and after a few minutes of conversation I found out he grows Agave's down in Mexico on his families land and they produce the finest Tequila in the entire world!

I actually have never tasted Tequila before so I wouldnt know what is good tequila or what is bad tequila, but I figured this had to be good tequila if it costs $100 for just a small little glass full. Anyhow, here is a picture of one of his aqave fields down in Mexico. Supposedly the agaves are farmed organically and grow for 8 years before they can be harvested for this tequila.


Here is a picture of David Reyes himself explaining to me the tequila making process. Some day when people are singing songs on the radio about David Reyes tequila like they do Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels, I can tell my kids and grandkids that I actually met the man himself!


So moving back into the week, we stocked lots of fish into lots of lakes and ponds all over central Illinois and Missouri. We finished most all of our trout stockings for the year, and gave thousands of smallmouth, largemouth, catfish, and hybrid bluegills new homes as well.

That brings me to another interesting story from the week. I was putting in some special strain of pure genetic bluegills I had raised for a fishing club that has 8 lakes on it when the guy said, hey you gotta come up here and check out my lake that you stocked 3 years ago. He said that he guaranteed me that he would catch 3 big yellow perch in the first 5 minutes right from his dock.

I figured the moment he said that we would see exactly zero perch, but low and behold on his first cast he reals in a 9 inch perch. Second cast a 10 inch perch, third cast nothing and 4th cast another 9 incher. I was pretty excited as we talked strategy for this lake. He said he regularly catches 30-40 perch per outing with the biggest well over a lb each and 12-13 inches long!!!

Back to the fish stocking subject, we will be stocking tons of walleye, pike, perch, and muskie in the next coming weeks. We still have pretty much every species still available, but what I have a surplus of and really need to find new homes for is northern pike 16-24 inches long. Right now I have 50 extra pike that are 2 years old and that have an average weight of 1.5-2.0 lbs each. The absolute most perfect sizes for stocking into lakes with existing predators!

Send me an email to nate@hbpondmanagement.com or call me up at 309-303-5691 if you could find a home for some of these fish for me.

Missouri Conservation and Illinois Youth Season

A short breakdown and apology for this past weeks questionable events on DominantPredator.org

Brian Sutter hang and hunts with his Lone Wolf set on a new property in Illinois, in attempt to figure the deer movement out for rut. Then tag along with Blake during the Illinois youth season as he looks to pull the trigger on a big buck or a doe. The Dominant Predator crew is ready for a cool down in the temperature!