January 2013 Alabama Coastal Fishing Forecast

Cold weather has finally arrived and seems as though it is going to stick around for a while.  Unfortunately for speckled trout fishing, the chill in the air only came after a few hard fronts bringing several inches of rain in a two week span.  The delta of Mobile bay that has been producing outstanding trout fishing since early October has been filled with the fresh rain water and turned the pretty green saltwater into what we call "chocolate milk."  The brown water has little to no visibility and is very fresh which acts a lot like kryptonite for speckled trout fishing.  Theoretically, the fish have moved into deeper water where the heavier salt water has settled.  That would absolutely hold true if we only had rain fall on top of us.  However, the counties to the north of Mobile and Baldwin received just as much rainfall, if not more than we did.  What remains to be seen is what happens to the water quality as all of that fresh, brown water comes flowing down adding to the stuff that's already here.  Often times in situations like this, the flow and volume of rain water exceeds the deep rivers' ability to hold saltwater, even in the deepest parts (50 to 60ft. in many places).

    Enough of what is messed up.....how about what's going right?  Some really nice sized sheephead have moved into the Orange Beach area and are ready to be caught.  This weekend, we were able to catch sheephead averaging 5lbs and on ultra-light tackle, they will put up an incredible fight.  The fight of a large sheephead is very comparable to a redfish.  These fish's intelligence, I think, is underestimated sometimes by many.  Although it is easy to get hungry sheephead to bite on just about any size tackle, I have found that when you go ultra-light on your mainline, weight, swivel, leaderline, and hook you are much more likely to have the bigger fish bite.  Consequently, the fight is much more enjoyable on the lighter tackle.  Some nice redfish and black drum will also be available mixed in with the sheephead during the winter months. If you would like to book a charter, visit our reservations page and follow the instructions to contact me and I will contact you ASAP.  Thank you for taking the time to read.  I appreciate it.