Doc on July Fishing

Habla espanol? It could come in handy this month when trying to coax a Spanish mackerel into taking your Johnson Sprite. Besides plenty of high heat and humidity, you see, July also offers some of the best mackerel fishing of the year. And, in this case, one out of three ain't bad...

The majority of Spanish mackerel are taken each year in and around the barrier island passes and points south; but shore-based anglers can also score well with these toothsome gamesters. Silver spoons - Johnson Sprites, Mr. Champs and Sidewinders are among the best baits to use when in pursuit of mackerel. Whether you cast them from a front beach pier or knee deep in Camille Cut matters little. If the Spaniards are around, the spoon is sure to get their attention.

As an added bonus, the spoon is also an excellent bait for bluefish, bonito, jack crevalle and all the other southern immigrants that will reach peak abundance in the Sound in midsummer.

July is also a good month for cobia prospecting along the Intracoastal Waterway, the Tugboat Channel to many. Attracted to shade - any shade - lemonfish will station themselves near buoys, daymarkers and other aids to navigation in the Sound. Drifting up to the structure and casting a weighted feathered jig, more often than not will get the big fish's attention. Getting a cobe to strike is another matter for which I can offer little advice. Cobia are excitable fish and can be angered or teased into striking. Give it a try; maybe you have just the technique to get under its skin.

Another shade-loving species that abounds in the Sound this time of year is the tripletail or blackfish. Like the cobia, it too is fond of hanging around navigational structures and such. And these slabsided, deep-bodied fish can be quite a challenge on light tackle. Imagine catching an eight-pound bluegill and you will have some idea of what it's like to catch a tripletail. Though these fish will also strike at a jig and other artificials, it is far more common to catch them on natural baits - shrimp, squid or cut-bait.

Front beach fishermen will find continued good fishing this month with trout and reds, both on topwater and medium-running plugs and jigs as well as live shrimp, of course. By the middle of the month though, the most consistent trout fishing will occur during the early morning hours and again after sundown.

Always eager to inhale a passing free meal, flounders are a dependable alternative when the trout are not biting. A plastic shrimptail jig - Stingray Grub, Tout, Cocahoe Minnow or Sparkle Beetle - tipped with a small piece of market bait is effective for taking flounder. Of course, bottom feeders of all sorts, including gafftopsail and hard-head catfish, will also take a liking to your offerings.

If you should tire of removing catfish from your hook, try a visit to the Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo for some relief. Here, you can watch weighmaster George Wright do all the work, and you'll get a chance to see what you might have been catching... If you weren't so busy catching catfish, that is...