Marginal weather did little to slow a red-hot Gulf bite for the FishAholic crew off Orange Beach, Alabama, where red snapper, vermillion, triggerfish and a surface-busting amberjack run kept rods bent over structure — all on squid-imitating jigs.
Skipper Captain Buddy Paul, running out of Perdido Pass aboard a 36-foot Cape Horn with Southern Bend charters, played it cautious given the wind. "We're probably going to stay in a little close today and just see how it looks out there because of the wind and the wave height," Paul said. "We're going to go after some red snappers, catch at least some red snappers, and see if we can get our trigger fish and some vermillion snappers."
In around 80 feet of water, Nomad Design Squid Trex 130 jigs — squid-scented from the pack — drew strikes the instant they touched bottom. American red snapper came steadily, joined by vermillion "beeliners" over the 10-inch minimum and triggerfish measured against a tight 15-inch keeper limit.
The standout was the amberjack. Fish that usually hold deep boiled to the surface in the shallow water, an unusual spectacle. "I'm so used to catching AJs in three or four hundred feet of water," one angler said. "It's hard to stop them in this shallow water." The boat was repeatedly hooked up on all sides at once, fish "smoking it on the drop."
The crew's biggest rival was a dolphin shadowing the boat to snatch hooked fish, forcing anglers to release on the far side to outsmart it. Paul's local knowledge underpinned the haul; he has guided the area for years. "I started doing it for a living in 2017," he said, "but I've been out here fishing since I was in my early teens."
On regulations, Paul expected the federal red snapper season to stay open, unlike tighter closures making news elsewhere this year. "It probably won't close until the seventh," he said of the anticipated September date. With the dolphin growing bolder, the crew wrapped on a high — a textbook Gulf mixed bag headlined by an amberjack show on top that few aboard had witnessed before.
