[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ell it’s April again, and it should be on fire this month for fishing Dauphin Island. The shoals and the south and north facing beaches start a lot of wade fishing/boat fishing. When we wade fish I like to use top water (top dogs ,Zara spooks ,bacon ,Adonis etc) and suspending baits (catch 2000,mirrowdine, bacon dank suspect), silver /black, red/white, green /silver, on all these baits. The Mississippi sound should be starting to wake up from winter, so start looking for bait piled up around Coffee Island and some of the wrecks in the sound. Grand Bay should be looking excellent as well. Redfish and Specks will be chasing all the glass minnows around, so throw some top water around the schools and you should be successful. The fish should be starting to show up at the rigs in the bay (if no fresh water arrives and messes everything up) looking for something good to eat.
This is the time for live shrimp, finger mullet, croakers, pogeys (menhaden). All of these will work better under a slip cork or free lined or a small weighted bottom rig. The rigs outside the bay will be holding sheepshead, flounder, redfish (bulls). The beaches will be crawling with boats looking for cobia (lemonfish/ling), so don’t be surprised to see one or two swim by you fishing the rigs on the south side. Good luck and we’ll see you on the water.
Captain Joey Lapyrouse