Finding the Ghost Trout of Alabama’s Mobile
Bay
Understand the Trout Migration Schedule
 Editor’s
Note: Most visitors to Alabama’s Gulf Coast fill
their ice chests with speckled trout, redfish and flounder
during the spring, summer and fall. Five and 6-pound
trout com e
frequently from the artificial reefs, numerous oyster
reefs and oil rigs in Mobile Bay. But when Jack Frost
comes calling, he seems to cause the trout in the bay
to vanish like ghosts. Only the locals and some veteran
fishermen know the secrets, which they pass down from
generation to generation, to finding these trout that
take a northern wintertime vacation to warmer waters
and more-abundant food. What we’ve learned from
these ghost-like trout in Mobile Bay may help you find
where cold-weather trout stay in secluded hot spots
all along the Upper Gulf Coast.
Captain Gary Davis of Foley, Alabama, who’s guided
and fished for 40 years on Alabama’s Gulf Coast
primarily fishes the eastern shore of Mobile Bay’s
brackish-water rivers with high salinity, during the
winter months, including the Bon Secour, the Fish and
the Magnolia rivers. These river systems have numerous
deep holes in them. When the weather starts turning
cold, the baitfish move out of Mobile Bay north into
Weeks bay and then further north up the river systems
explains, speckled trout and redfish in Mobile Bay follow
their annual migration. Davis explains, “Smaller
specks and reds will begin moving up these brackish-water
rivers first, following the baitfish, about the first
to the middle of October when our section of the coast
starts getting occasional cold fronts.” 
Davis reports that the trout swim out of Mobile Bay
to the mouth of Weeks Bay at the jugneck formed where
Weeks Bay empties into Mobile Bay. A deep channel r uns
between the two narrow points of the jugneck where trout
generally will hold on the insides of those points for
about two to three weeks, before heading up the Fish
and the Magnolia rivers. The migration up the Bon Secour
River happens at about the same time. The trout will
stage at the mouth of the Bon Secour River for about
one or two weeks and then swim north, further upstream,
searching for deep holes. “During December and
January, you’ll usually locate trout in the deepest
holes – 12 to 30 feet of water - and channels
of these three rivers and many of the other rivers that
feed into Mobile Bay,” Davis reports.
When planning a trip, check out Tidewater Fishing Service
(Captain Gary Davis), Foley, AL 36535, (251) 943-6298
and www.gulfshores.com,
1-800-745-7263.
Tomorrow: Fish Artificial
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