Summer’s here and the fish are everywhere. Specks are in the waters north of Dauphin Island around most of the usual spots. Use top water early and sinking as the heat rises. Shrimp or plastics will also work on popping corks. Flounder are also inshore in good numbers. All piers,

pilings, sand bars, oyster bars, stumps, etc. are suspect.

With specks, it’s always best to net your catch. This is so true with flounder. Their teeth are sharp and do cut mono really easy. Slot red fish should be around all the same places as trout and flounder. Popping corks or tight line with a Carolina rig work great.

If fishing on the southeastern side of the bay, be sure to try all the rocks around the Fort Morgan boat ramp and the jetties around Gulf Shores Marina — a good place to fish and eat or get some bait if needed. As far as live bait goes, I would try crickets for the specks, bull minnows for the flounder, and shrimp dead or alive for the red fish. You can use any of these baits for any of these fish. Some are just better suited for the fish

listed.

South of Fort Morgan Boat Ramp is my favorite place on the Gulf Coast. Its known as the Dixie Bar — named after a ship wreck — and has a dance named after it. The dance is the Dixie Bar Shuffle. That’s what happens

when four adults hook four adult red fish on the Dixie Bar as you drift with the outgoing current at a speed quick enough to almost ski on it.

Mixed in with these 20-pound to 50-pound red fish is always a few kings, some black drum, a couple of ling-cobia and more sharks than you can count. If no game fish are around, try your trout rods with 12-lb. or 15-lb. test line with steel leaders and a chunk of fish for bait on the bottom. The smallish Atlantic Sharp Nose Shark will give you a run for your money on these light set ups and can be a blast to catch. They are good to eat as well.

If you move north into the Bay you can find our inshore reefs — Shell Bank, Bon Secour, Fish River, Upper Wreck, Zundel and Point Clear all do often hold good schools of specks. They will stay and feed on these reefs until a carelessly thrown anchor is splashed into the water or a boat motors across the reef or storage lids are slammed shut and any number of things that make noise in the water happen. Then it’s time to move

to another reef. All the navigation light towers hold some good specks during the summer months. Specks will be shallow early and later in the day, around the lights at night, but during the heat of the day they go deep. Around all these reefs will be huge schools of white trout. You can catch these guys up to around 18 inches. Their bite and fight are good and they do cook up great. No limits on size or bag yet, but who needs to clean 100 white trout after fishing all day in the sun?!? Keep what you want but eat what you catch. They don’t freeze well but they fry up great.

When you locate a school of white trout, switch to plastics cut in thirds; and put it on the bottom. These guys will bite the bait in another fish’s mouth causing a double hookup on one hook and one piece of gulp bait.

There’s one other game fish in great numbers in Mobile Bay and

that’s black fish, a.k.a. triple tail. It is a really strong fish that tastes great and fights like a pit bull. Cast live shrimp on a cork about 5 feet deep around single pilings (like channel markers), legs on gas rigs, crab trap buoys, or anything floating in the bay. These fish look a little like the fresh water Oscar but get up to 15 to 20 pounds in the Bay. Smaller ones are more common. They used to be called the newspaper fish. People would spread out a newspaper in the water and form a mat. They follow the mat across the Bay fishing for Triple Tail. Some would use big thick cane poles as well. Marine Police don’t agree with putting the Sunday Paper on the water. It tends to make a mess.

Which brings the final words for this day. Please watch your wake, be kind to other boaters, know the licenses laws, know the size and bag limits, keep enough to eat tonight and remember that those red fish on the Dixie are the future of Alabama’s Red Fish population. Stay safe and know the rules of the road.

 — Capt. Don