Fishing Alongside a Battleship

The USS Alabama is permanently docked on the west side of Mobile Bay. Drifting by its silent guns, a skiff never felt so small.

Mobile Bay was my most recent stop on my redfish “tour” and the least successful regarding fish in the boat or even seen. While my sample size was small, it was pretty obvious early on that Mobile Bay is under a great deal of pressure from many interests. These include gill-netters, shrimp trawlers, sport anglers, commercial vessels, navigation officials, heavy industry, and probably a few groups I’ve overlooked. These interests aren’t that much different compared with much of the southern coast (sans the gill netters), but given the geography of the Alabama coast, all these activities are concentrated in a relatively small area.

When I arrived at the boat ramp, I thought perhaps I had crashed a tournament. Boats lined the ramp, and the lot was already full of cars, trucks, and trailers. And it was only 615am; the sun was just rising over the eastern bluff.  The crowds didn’t disappear on the water, instead clustering around apparently well-known fishing spots.

On one hand it’s great that people were out on the water fishing, but again, given the limited geography of the Bay, everyone jostled for position. Shrimp trawlers also plied the same waters; sometimes only yards from the shoreline making me wonder what impact those nets have on shallow grass flats. Overall, Alabama lost 1,371 acres of seagrass beds between 2002 and 2009, most of which occurred in the Bay. Although seagrass beds are sometimes ephemeral ecosystems, the connection between shallow water dragging and declining grass beds seems natural. Long prop scars bore witness to a lot of boat traffic in shallow waters.

I caught a couple of small redfish, but saw no slot size or bull reds crashing bait. In fact, I saw fewer fish than in any previous location I fished. While I don’t want to overstate a single day’s observations, I have little doubt redfish in Mobile Bay are impacted by the large number of nets. Not only direct impacts in gill nets as bycatch, but also the disruption of the food chain and habitat degradation by the near-shore trawlers. It is simply too small a space for a fishing free for all.  And given the lack of any real restrictions on gill nets and trawlers by state fisheries officials, a free for all is what seems to exist.