Fishing with Children at the Alabama CoastFishing with children is great fun and builds precious memories for the entire family. Even the youngest children 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 shore or a pier, the best rig in most cases is to tie a hook to a piece of line and attach the other side to a swivel, first sliding a slip sinker up the line, so that when casting the slip sinker stays above the swivel. Fish with a tight line. When the fish hits, it pulls the line away from the slip sinker. When the rod dips, set the hook. Another good rig is a cane pole with or without a float. These fish can be caught all over Florida and most of the Gulf Coast. On the Alabama 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 here were removed after Hurricane Ivan, so most people will not recognize this as a park area. It is public property though and fishing is usually good. The Intracoastal Canal on Canal Road in Orange Beach is also a good place for fishing with children. The traffic can be pretty bad on Canal Road, but there are places to escape the worst of it. Probably the best place to park your car is area where the highway veers away from the canal in Orange Beach. Another place that is suitable for fishing with children is the Little Lagoon Pass area of Gulf Shores on West Beach. This is also a very good place to catch crabs. The sea wall area is not a good place for young children, because there are no guard rails, and 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. Dead frozen shrimp is good bait for these fish. 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 intend to catch.The easiest way to identify a pinfish is the dark spot just behind the gill cover. Most are about 6 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 pretty good, fried. I don't like pinfish, and I like almost any fish. Kids usually get a kick out of eating what they catch, but you'll probably have to screen both croakers and pinfish for tiny bones. While fishing for pinfish and croakers other fish such as white trout, flounder, bluefish, and whiting sometimes take the bait. Certainly all of these fish are very tasty. Crabs are usually found in those places where pinfish and croakers hang out. Children enjoy catching crabs. Use some of your croakers and pinfish for crab bait. |
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