# Fort Pickens Pier, 08-19-2010



## Gulflady (Jun 19, 2010)

Sis and I arrived around 6:30am, only because I locked my keys in my car at the store while getting ice and I had to wait for Road Service to rescue me. Between that and seeing the lightning in the distance and the rain she had to travel through, we almost called the trip and didn't go. The water was clear and at first the current wasn't moving too hard, but soon it was moving swiftly out to the west. Ladyfish were hitting schools of bait fish everywhere, so we immediately put our live shrimp in the bait bucket over the side and threw some Gotchas on and started tossing. Some of the Ladyfish were huge, well over 2 feet long and fat. They would run the bait fish to shore, trapping them there with Seagulls standing on the beach catching them too. They finally slowed down and and most moved out around 9am leaving only occasional schools drifting by. There were tons of small Lys in under the pier, too small to net most of them. We only caught 2 large Lys (4-5 inch), but nothing hit on them at all. I put one out on a balloon to slow down the westward drift and Sis put her's on the bottom. No Hardtails around at all. Big brown balls of these very small bait fish would drift by, way out in the distance, with Seagulls attacking them. We got very lucky rain-wise, as it never did reach the pier and with all the rain surrounding us and the nice steady breeze out of the SW it kept us cooler than the normal Dog Day heat. There were birds everywhere, on the beaches and  in the air, like in Alfred Hitchcock's movie. The Blue Angels practiced over head, I think I got more pics of them than I did of fish, I forgot to take pics of the fish we caught. Cept one which I want to get identified, I think it's a Parrot fish of some sort, but I only remember catching them further down the beach on the rocks and Sis caught several of them at the pier. We packed it in around 10:45am, we did manage to take home 2 Spanish and 1 Black Snapper, but the Spanish bite was very, very slow. I was disappointed that there weren't more Spanish mixed in with all those Ladyfish.

Is the last pic a Parrot Fish?


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## Reel Wins (Jun 4, 2009)

do you ever get any redfish? we used to kill them off the beach in the afternoon and night


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## salt_water_guy (Feb 9, 2008)

That sucks you locked ya keys in ya car!!!


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## lastcast (Oct 12, 2007)

The fish is a wrasse.
File:Slippery Dick Wrasse - Halichoeres bivittatus.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Skip


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## Gulflady (Jun 19, 2010)

Reel Wins: Havn't caught any Redfish off the pier this year. Soon we might be trying down by the rock piles for them.

Salt_Water_Guy: Yeah, what makes it twice as humiliating is...my Dad was a Lock and Gunsmith. :blush:

lastcast: Thanks so much on ID'ing the fish. I was looking in all the wrong classes for it!


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## Butcherpen (Oct 8, 2007)

As always an excellent well written report. Can I hire you to write some grant applications? I'll be out in the boat Wed looking for spanish and what-not. Thanks for the heads up


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## mcbig1 (Sep 25, 2008)

gulflady,
not enough feathers to be a proper parrotfish ,probably due to inbreeding of some type!
just kidding darlin ! I always enjoy your posts and cant wait to get down there in about 3 weeks to enjoy some great fishing!
mike


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## pole squeezer (Oct 29, 2008)

parrot fish is in the wrasse family. There are many types of wrasses.


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## jdhkingfisher (Aug 6, 2010)

i have been catching king that are throwing up those wrass fish.


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