Hey everybody,
I appreciate all the great knowledge I pick up on this website and some of you guys are really inspirational for me as an amateur recreational fisherman.
I’d like to start a thread specifically around fishing docks. I have a few questions and I’m sure that there are lots of ideas on what works and what doesn’t. I know a lot of people are going to comment for me to try different stuff to see what works. Trust me, I have and will continue to try new things but thought we could maybe share some ideas in the interest of making us all a little better.
Here’s what I’d like to know:
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What do you look for in scoping out a dock to fish? Some seem to produce better than others. What are the top things you should look for when cruising by a line of docks?
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Does it make a difference with tide direction and/or current strength when fishing docks?
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Should lures and baits always be fished with the current past pilings?
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Are docks more productive certain times of the year by species?
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Any other helpful hints you are willing to share?
Thanks y’all!
Good topic
Old crusty docks seem to be the best, but sometimes you never know, because there may be a washed out hole under somewhere where the fish will stack up.
Really strong current makes it difficult to fish a dock with artificials, but you can anchor upstream and chunk cut bait under the dock
Arties, I’d say yes, but cut bait will not matter
Fish will be in certain patterns seasonally. Redfish are very predictable in their behavior especially in warm months on docks. Try using cut bait or better yet a mudder on a jig head and literally hit as many docks as you can. Don’t dwell more than 5 min. When you find them, note the tide, and the fish should be there very reliably on that tide stage all summer.
With time, you will get a list of docks that are productive at different tide stages and you will always have somewhere to fish!
In general you will want to use heavier gear because when you hook a big ol red under a dock you want to have the drag set tight and to be able to turn them away from the pilings. This is sometimes impossible to do!
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Like Optiker said, better up your gear. I use 50# braid and 60 to 80# leader. Got to turn those larger Reds and get them out or POP. You lose.
A wise man once said “Do as I say not as I do” Good advice when I tell you that.
Also avoid tying up to someones dock and respect other anglers space when they are fishing the same area,
I have fished my dock before and have had line broken when a big red grabs hold. Like someone else said, use heavy pound test and make sure your drag is tight. A fish will wrap you around the dock pilings and then snap. I like to fish live bait, whether it be mullet, glass minnows, or another kind of baitfish. You can also throw cut fish or blue crab for fishing reds.
I love fishing docks. I look for docks with oysters,old pilings that are now more like stumps, drop offs,ect. around them. I look at low tide for these things and then fish the dock in several tide stages until i catch (or dont) fish. Log you results and when you start to see a pattern you getting there. Get you a gulp or zman on a jig head and cast it as far under the dock as you can. I skip cast under docks and can get way way back under them this way. Plus it is fun to try to get a 30 in red out from way in there. When you do this, dont reel, just let the bait fall naturally and 9 times out of ten if they hit it it will be on that initial fall. If you dont get a strike work it back slowly maximizing the time that the bait is under there. Dont get caught up in fishing only the pilings near the shore line because sometimes they are on the outside, under the floating portion of said dock.Tide direction can matter, but i would not worry about that until you figure out which docks hold fish. When you do that you wont be fishing there unless its right anyway. For instance: one of my favorite docks holds fish only for the two first hrs of an incoming tide.Before it turns they are around another dock nearby. So, they will be around docks in general all the time but may be around a specific dock for a limited amount of the tide cycle. You can productively fish docks 12 months a year. If you get a fish that hangs you on a piling drop your rod tip and/or pop bail and relieve the pressure on the fish and many times the he will come off. The other day this happened to me and I was able to get my fish, which i could see sitting there and was tagged too, with out any trouble. After a few seconds he just came right off and i reeled him on in! If you get hung on a dock and decide to go to the dock to get it undone, do it quietly. After you get it undone, look around to see if you are in a position to cast to an otherwise impossible to reach area. I cant tell you how many reds i have caught this way. Good luck,dock fishi
This is all great information. You guys are great for sharing. I always tended to look for a dock that was further away from other docks thinking that any fish that prefer docks would concentrate there. Would it be safe to say that this is generally true or does the dock on the down or up current side in a line of docks generally a good place to start?
I really like the idea of recording the location and tide of a catch at each dock. This is probably true of all fishing and I need to do a better job of putting the rod down and picking the pencil up. Right after catching a fish is a hard time for me to do that!!
Great info guys. Thanks for sharing. 
that’s awesome info, I appreciate it!
“mr keys”
This info is really awesome. I look forward to using posting some pictures of my monster fish using this new found information!
This is exactly what these forums should be about! Thanks everybody!