Pier & Shore Fishing Outlook May 28-June 11, 2025

Pier & Shore Fishing Outlook May 28-June 11, 2025
By David “The Pierpounder” Thornton

Our previous fortnight was a mix of good and bad weather with fishing suffering at times due to the predominate westerly winds experienced for about a week. Consequently the water was dingy through much of the period which began with the Sargassum grass invasion. Not much new seaweed floated ashore but surf anglers were forced to deal with the mess until it was picked up by municipal governments or decayed on its own. There were some scattered good catches of pompano as our season hits its peak around the end of May. Most of the remaining pompano will be leaving the surf zone to spawn during this fortnight around the full moon June 11th. Not that there won’t be any available, but the numbers of pompano drop off dramatically by this time of year even as schools of ladyfish (called skipjack), blue runner (called hardtail), other jacks and incidental catch species take over the surf zone.
Meanwhile speckled trout have been plentiful in the shallow waters surrounding the Fort Morgan Peninsula in both the Gulf and Bay. Specks can be caught on a variety of artificial lures this time of year as they begin gathering into spawning aggregations. One of their favorite spots is in the beach troughs along the Gulf shoreline where waters are from 4 to 10 feet deep. The trout gather in the quieter waters between the beach and sandbar to shelter from waves, currents, and predators such as sharks or dolphins. Just about anything that looks and acts like an injured mullet, or other small baitfish is likely to be attacked by these hungry seatrout. They feed mostly on the morning incoming tide but may continue to bite into midday whenever conditions remain favorable. They tend to prefer cloudy days without much wind or waves on the Gulf side. Days that are too rough to fish for trout in the Gulf are often much better on the bay side with the breeze at your back. Similar patterns hold for Little Lagoon, especially around the mouth of the pass, except when an outgoing tide in the afternoon entices Gulf trout to bite around the mouth of the inlet.
Speckled trout have been available at times from the Gulf State Park too, both day and night. Minnows attracted to the pier lights draw predators like specks, redfish, and flounder to the structure. They may be caught on lures there, but most succumb to live shrimp, bull minnows, and LYs (Scaled herring). Pier anglers targeting specks with live shrimp have also landed redfish, flounder, and pompano as bycatch and even an occasional small cobia. A pier net is often used to lift good eating fish like these from the water, hopefully before one of the marauding sharks can make a snack of it.

Farther out on the pier those sharks have been waiting for ladyfish schools to show up. Most anglers throw back ladyfish in various conditions, which the sharks readily take advantage of. Ladyfish are actually good eating however, when the flesh is scraped from the skin and bones with a spoon and used to prepare as fishcakes. Blue runner are another less desirable species that are quite palatable especially after being bled out. Their flesh is firm and flavorful making it great for pan-searing or ceviche.
Mackerel though, are the main draw for anglers to the pier now. Especially spanish mackerel which may well be the most abundant gamefish caught from the pier throughout the year. Some days can be exceptional with a couple of hundred mackerel put on the pier to be taken home for eating. They are as popular to eat as they are to catch on light and medium tackle. Mackerel can be prepared in a variety of manners including deep fried, pan-fried, baked, broiled, smoked, or raw. All mackerel have a high oil content in the flesh much like tuna their distant relative, and are very nutritious. Spanish mackerel are short-lived fish, and most caught from the pier are less than three years old. This makes them much less likely to assimilate mercury or other toxins their larger (older) cousins, king mackerel may contain. But king mackerel are good eating too, especially the ones under about 20 pounds which have no consumption advisories placed on them.
King mackerel are a highly favored gamefish from the pier, renowned for their slashing savage strike and blistering fast first run. On a proper drag setting, a king mackerel may run 200 to 300 yards on its initial run. They are sprinters though, and having expended most of its energy in that first run, a king has very little energy left to continue the fight at the pier. This makes king mackerel highly susceptible to shark depredation. During the previous decade, sharks were taking upwards of 90+% of the king mackerel hooked from the pier. Perhaps because of more commercial shark fishing in our coastal waters, numbers of Blacktip and Spinner sharks seem to be down slightly from previous years observations. This may allow mackerel landings from the pier to again return to their historic levels of 10 or more a day, as we enter the best time of year to target kings.
Another season is about to start that we hope will not be nearly as active, is the Atlantic Hurricane Season, officially beginning June 1st. Forecasters predict another above average tropical season, but we can hope and pray they are wrong, or at least that we are spared the worst. After all we are just getting back access to the octagon at the end of the pier for the first summer in five years. Please Lord, let us enjoy it!

Flood waters in Perdido Bay have receded and water salinity is on the rise, along with the water temperature which is now into the lower 80s. This entices a variety of fish for anglers to seek along the seawall and jetty at Perdido Pass. A NEAP tide period June 3rd and 4th will interrupt our typical pattern of morning rising tides and evening falling tides. But each tide flow presents a unique situation for anglers to take advantage of as different fish species move around that dynamic area to feed.