November Mackerel in Panama City Beach: Part Three
Eugene L. 02.03.25
Day 3 of trying to get at least a single king mackerel on the November Pier King Mac tournament. With the first two being a bust and this last day being only a half day before having to make the long drive back home, the outlook was looking bleak for my weighing a fish, especially with the weather forecast calling for not-too-favorable conditions. More storms had rolled in overnight and made the water pretty dirty again, to the point I could see how muddy the water in the shallows looked from the balcony while I had my breakfast. I considered maybe just making the drive home early with how bad the outlook was.
Saltwater Fishing Coverage on OutdoorHub
- November Mackerel in Panama City Beach: Part One
- Fishing the World’s Longest Fishing Pier – The Tampa Skyway Fishing Pier
- Out of Season Offshore Bottom Fishing in Destin Florida PT. 2
- Out of Season Offshore Bottom Fishing in Destin Florida PT. 1
- Running to the Otherside of the Gulf Stream – North Florida Bluewater Fishing
Dirty water and bad weather be damned, I was still gonna give it a try. After checking out and heading to the pier, I got my cart ready and headed towards the pier house, checking the tournament leaderboard on the way. 1st and 2nd place for the tournament was around 26 pounds, which is pretty small for late-season kings. It’s been a terrible couple of years for kings out here, with beach renourishment cutting into the water depth and dirtying up the water. Also, a side note for anyone who wants to fish the Bay County Pier: the entrance has an 8′ 6″ clearance, so make sure to take any 8′ or taller rods out of your pier cart before walking in. That way, you don’t potentially damage your rods.
What I saw from the hotel balcony was right; the water was chocolate milk to the first “T” of the pier. From there on out, the water started to clear up a little bit, but it was still pretty dirty for what you want to catch: mackerel from the pier. While the conditions sucked, there was at least one nice thing going for me today, the bait. There was a ton of good bait today compared to the day before. You could see the schools of cigar minnows up on the surface feeding. Along with the cigar minnows, you could see tons of LYs getting worked by some predators, and the school glittered in water as they tried to escape. Out away from the pier, about a half mile out, you could see schools of bait getting worked by birds and bigger predators.
Getting to the end of the pier told me things were, in fact, not looking up, though talking to the guys who came and fished the sunrise let me know I hadn’t missed much besides a few big Spanish mackerel and a couple of Bonita that stuck around for 10 minutes before another tide line of dirty water pushed them back further offshore. Even with the bad news, I made some bait to fish with. After walking out to the end, there is no point in calling it quits without soaking some baits. I got the livewell set up again and started loading it with a few big cigar minnows and a handful of little Spanish mackerel-sized LYs.
I put out one of those little LYs right away, hoping to get some more Spanish mackerel, at least, using the same rig as the day before. I got a hit almost immediately and promptly pulled up this trash fish. The remoras were out thick today. I caught another two of these sucker-headed fish before deciding that fishing for Spanish was a lesson in futility at the moment and decided to switch things up. And try to fish for some king mackerel with the cigar minnows I already had in the livewell.
As soon as I got to my pier cart, a band of rain made its way through. Luckily, I had my slickers in my Bote bag and suited up for what I thought was gonna be a good bit of rain. And, of course, as I suited up, it rained for 3 minutes and then moved on. So after shedding the slickers again and packing them away, I got to soaking some cigar minnows across the front of the pier. I promptly watched my buddy catch a gaff topsail catfish of a live cigar minnow. Then I caught one right after him, thus beginning the trash fish streak. We watched another three get caught; the dirty water brought in the catfish.
After the streak of catfish ended, we had another trash fish show up, and little Atlantic Sharpnose sharks started coming through and just munching up any king bait that was being soaked at the moment. I caught a couple in a row and saw four others come over the rail one after the other. While these guys are considered trash fish, I’ve heard they are actually decent eating, so I kept one. Atlantic sharpnose fall into Group 1 of sharks, so have no minimum size limit and are included in the daily bag limit of 1 shark.
Now that I was out of kingfish-sized baits, I decided to go back to fishing for Spanish mackerel. I only had an hour before leaving anyway, so I decided to try to get some more meat or swordfish baits. Instead, I caught another non mackerel fish, this time it was cool at least. I started catching flounder on my Spanish mackerel rigs. This was a first for me and a pleasant surprise compared to everything else I caught. They weren’t very big, but they were neat to look at. Even if they were legal-sized, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, with Flounder being closed in November.
After using up the last of my live baits on flounder, I decided to call it a day. I knew I wasn’t catching a king, so I decided to pack up the cart and rinse off my gear. After that, I chatted with some friends before making the quarter-mile walk off the pier and driving home. While I didn’t get that king mackerel for the trip, at least I got some water time and got to fish with some friends.
