# Fort Pickens Pier, 06252010



## Gulflady (Jun 19, 2010)

Today my sisters and I got to the pier at 445am, armed with live shrimp, frozen cigar minnows and squid. The fish won, all we caught was a lady fish, a stargazer, a sand perch, a few pin fish for bait and watched a sting ray brought in which hit a fellow fisherman's live pin fish. We were surprised with a nice breeze from the north keeping us cool from the blazing sun, til around 9am. The water was crystal clear with thousands of baby Lys hanging around the pier and occasional thick schools of shiners swimming by. About 30 baby nettlefish kept tormenting the bait fish in the shallows. But once again we were disappointed that the anticipated tide line didn't come by around 9am. The current wasn't strong today and would slowly move unweighted baits in towards the shore. All in all it was a beautiful day on the gorgeous water, too bad the fish missed out!

The barge is still anchored to the west, between the pier and the red buoy, it's being used as a supply pick up location. Around 7am small boats came in and picked up supplies and were gone by 8am. The tug arrived around 8am, attached itself to the barge but didn't shut off it's motor til about 830am. Also at 7am, workers started arriving on the shore by four wheelers, trucks and buses. They set up canopy tents, with tables and chairs and supplies under them, on the beach on both sides of the pier. The overseer of the work crew walked out on the pier to us, looking at the water conditions, and politely asked us if we were having any luck. We asked why the clean up on the bay side of the Fort and he said they were going through the Sargassum seaweed that was washed up on the shore and picking up the clumps that did have tar balls in them. There wasn't any tar balls on the beach here, but some had traveled through the pass, stuck in the seaweed, was what they were after. He said they worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week, meeting at the Pensacola Fair Grounds at 5am. He was from Louisiana, but all the others were locals from Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. The work was going slow, cause they weren't allowed to take all the seaweed, they had to check through it and only take what had tarballs in them. The four wheelers would go out towards the pass, around the point out of sight for a while, returning to the tents later aparantly reporting how much more needed to be cleaned in that area or having checked on other areas that tents were set up on the Gulf side. About 845am, we noticed some boats gathering to the east of us, in the cove that was just past the boom on the east of the pier. At first we thought they had gotten on a school of fish, but then too many of them finally met there, then at 9am they paraded out towards the pass. On our way home, around 1030am, we saw workers on the Gulf side on Fort Pickens and up to the Pensacola Beach Pier area, before we turned homeward on Via De Luna Dr.


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## jjam (Dec 9, 2007)

Gl,

Sorry that you didn't get on the bite but sounds like you took advantage of a beautiful day to wet a bait.

Thanks for taking time to give us the blow by blow activities of clean up crews as well....

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11.6667px; ">Wife and I are heading to Ft Mcrae tomorrow and hope the cove will be oil free...

Keep the post coming as unlike others, this<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11.6667px; ">one has calmed my stomach down a bit...lol

Jimmy


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## jjam (Dec 9, 2007)

Why are my fonts reduced when I didn't reduce them?

Jimmy


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## MacD (Feb 25, 2010)

I just might of passed you as you were on the way out. I've been out on the bay side everyday this week except for ?tuesday? its all running together. Definitely sucks to get up that early and not have the kinda luck you want. In any case, yea the workers were slow going(but extremely polite and friendly) but there really was a need for them and have done good work since Tuesday. Tuesday I looked like I was working on an engine, but today I only got one little splotch that I can see on my clothes. Floating tar balls(flakes) on the bottom at the water line can still be found but until the clean up crew came through half dollar sized globs were pretty common down near the second Jetty on the left. Additionally one of the younger park rangers, I didn't recognize him was busy around 3pm keeping track of a seabird that was pretty well covered in oil waiting for a pickup crew don't know that outcome as he seemed to be covering a lot of ground.

All and all the water looked a LOT better since the night before it was extremely ******(if that's a word), and I didn't notice any at all yesterday.

As for my report its pretty much the same. SLOW. I was there from around 9 to 4, had a few friends stop throughout the day, and only managed a few mangrove and a red. That was from 11-1. After that it was all cats, pigfish, and hardtail and not very many of those either. Although there was a spanish(guessing thought i saw spots) out there tearing up the schools he wasn't picking up what I was throwing down.

Better luck next time, might be out there again today or tomorrow, once I figure out how much of a sunburn I actually have.


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