Alabama's Gulf Coast Fishing with ProKat Boats and
Phil Mosley
Speed is What You Need
 Editor’s
Note: The second week of May, 2007, I fished the Alabama
Gulf Coast for snapper, grouper and amberjack on a ProKat
catamaran. Today, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Dauphin
Island along the Alabama Gulf Coast produce some of
the finest saltwater fishing in the nation. As proof
of that, 23-year-old Brian Bailey, Jr. of Mobile, Alabama,
caught what appears to be a new line-class world-record
red snapper on April 21, 2007, the opening day of red
snapper season in Alabama and the beginning of the Orange
Beach Red Snapper World Championship (RSWC). But more
importantly, it was Bailey's birthday. All the stars
must have been aligned, causing some cosmic phenomenon
that allowed Bailey to set a new red snapper line-class
world record on his birthday.
“My birthday has been on the opening day of red
snapper season for as long as I can remember,”
Brian Bailey, Jr. recalls. Bailey was fishing with his
dad, Brian Bailey, Sr., on
the charter boat “Kwazar” out of Dauphin
Island, using a dead northern mackerel for bait. The
31.2-pound red snapper took the bait, stripping Bailey's
reel line. Even at 23 years old, Bailey’s an experienced
red-snapper fisherman. He knew he had a big snapper
stretching his line and pretzeling his rod, but the
50-pound-test Berkley Big Game line held the hook secure
in the snapper's jaw until Bailey got the big fish into
the boat. “I’d already broken off several
other snapper and grouper that were too big to get into
the boat, so I tried to get this fish off the bottom
and move it to the surface as fast as possible,”
Bailey says. With all the paper work submitted, Alabama's
marine biologists believe the IGFA (International Game
and Fish Association) will certify Bailey's red snapper
as a new 50-pound-test line-class world record. Bailey's
fish will beat the previous 50-pound-test line-class
record red snapper caught from Dry Tortugas that weighed
29.12 pounds.
But the story doesn't end here. Bailey's red snapper
placed 4th in the 2007 RSWC, earni ng
him $6,000. On the same day that Brian Bailey, Jr. made
his world-record catch, his father caught a red snapper
that weighed 30.8 pounds, placing him 5th in the RSWC
and earning him $4,000. “We went out snapper fishing
two weeks after the beginning of the tournament and
Dad caught another red snapper that would have made
the leader board,” Bailey emphasizes. “However,
it wasn't bigger than his fifth-place fish. Because
you only can enter one red snapper in the tournament,
we didn't enter the 2nd big fish that Dad caught. Since
the opening of red-snapper season, we’ve consistently
caught 20-pound-plus red snappers off Alabama's Gulf
Coast.” Thousands of artificial reefs built on
the bottom by federal, state and local officials have
created one of the finest red-snapper fishing artificial-reef
programs in the nation.
“Having one of the smallest coastlines on the
Gulf of Mexico, the state of Alabama lands between 35
and 45 percent of all red snapper caught in the Gulf,”
Vernon Minton, chief of Alabama's Marine Resources Division
(AMRD), comments. “One of the benefits of the
RSWC is that each year, a portion of the $5 entry fee
charged to enter the RSWC goes to the AMRD to build
and deploy new reefs. Since the beginning of the RSWC,
the state of Alabama has built more than 400-new reefs.
Our artificial reefs are not only attracting red sna pper,
but all reef species like vermilion snapper, amberjack,
triggerfish and a good number of the pelagic fish like
king mackerel, cobia and other fishes.” The location
for these reefs and other public reefs can be found
at www.outdooralabama.com/fishing/saltwater/where/artificial-reefs/.
From research performed by Auburn University, the University
of South Alabama and the AMRD, scientists have learned
that artificial reefs attract and hold fish, and in
the case of the red snapper, “We’ve found
that the snapper are spawning and breeding and are fairly
fraternal to the reefs within 1 mile of where they spawned,”
Minton explains. Right now, fishing in the Gulf of Mexico
couldn't be better for a wide variety of species, including
marlin, wahoo and dolphin. Every day, charter boats
and private boats pull into the marinas at Orange Beach,
Fort Morgan and Dauphin Island with big catches of sport
fish. With plenty of motels and some of the finest restaurants
found anywhere in the country, Alabama's Gulf Coast
has become a fishing destination for anglers all over
the nation.
For the latest information on the 2007 Red Snapper
World Championship along Alabama's Gulf Coast, go to
http://redsnapper.orangebeachsnapper.com.
To learn more about Alabama’s Gulf Coast Convention
and Visitors bureau, go to www.gulfshores.com,
or call, 800-745-SAND.
Tomorrow: What is Fishability?
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