Fishing with Children at the Alabama Coast

Fishing is Easy on the Alabama Gulf Coast.

Taking your children fishing is fun, and precious memories are built for the entire family. Even the youngest can have fun fishing for "easy" fish like pinfish and croakers.

Use the same tackle to catch these fish as you do panfish at home like bluegills-- light spinning reels, light line, and small hooks. When fishing from the bank or pier, the best rig in most cases is a hook tied to a piece of line, attached at the bottom of a swivel, with a slip sinker resting on the top side of the swivel. When casting, the slip sinker stays above the swivel. When a fish bites, it will pull the line away from the slip sinker. Fish with a tight line. When the rod dips, set the hook.

Another good rig is a cane pole. You can catch croakers and pinfish both on and off the bottom, so you can fish with or without a float.

Pinfish and croakers can be caught all over Florida and most of the Gulf Coast.

On the Alabama Gulf Coast, probably the best place to catch these fish is the little park on Cotton Bayou in Orange Beach (Highway 182), across from the water tower with the big fish painted on it. The picnic tables were removed after Hurricane Ivan, so most people will not recognize this as a park area. It is public property though and fishing is generally good.

The Intracoastal Canal on Canal Road in Orange Beach is also a good place to take children fishing. The traffic can be bad on Canal Road, but there are places to escape the worst of it. Probably the best place to park your car is the place where the highway veers away from the canal in Orange Beach.

Another place that is suitable for fishing with children is at Little Lagoon Pass on West Beach. The sea wall area is not a good place for young children; there are no guard rails, so there is the potential danger of falling in and being swept away by the current. The sandy area on the lagoon side of the bridge is a good place for children to fish, and play. This is also a particularly good place to catch crabs; buy a crab basket and use cut bait.

Dead frozen shrimp is good bait for pinfish and croakers. It is cheap and can be bought almost anywhere, including many convenience and grocery stores. During warm weather months, pinfish and croakers hit like crazy so use shrimp to catch a few, then cut those up for bait. It only takes a tiny sliver of cut bait to catch a pinfish.

If you are planning a fishing trip later for yourself, pinfish and croakers make excellent bait, either live or as cut bait, depending on what you are after.

The easiest way to identify a pinfish is the dark spot just behind the gill cover. Most are about six inches or less.

Croakers (specifically the Atlantic croaker) usually weigh less than a pound, but larger ones are sometimes caught. The most distinctive feature of croakers are barbels under the lower jaw.

These fish are edible, and I have tried them. Croakers are tasty, fried. Pinfish are too boney for most people. Kids usually get a kick out of eating what they catch, but you will probably have to screen for bones.

While fishing for pinfish and croakers, other fish such as white trout, flounder, bluefish, and whiting sometimes take the bait. Certainly, all these fish are very tasty.

Take your fishing gear on your next beach trip!