Alabama deep sea fishing: a short coast, a deep fleet

What you fish in Alabama, and when

Red snapper is the fish Alabama is built around, and the state earns it. Alabama runs the largest artificial reef program in the country, more than a thousand square miles of permitted bottom seeded with reefs and wrecks, and that habitat is what makes the snapper fishing here as good as anywhere in the Gulf. The season runs in two layers: state licensed and private boats open in late May and fish until Alabama’s quota is met, while federally permitted charter boats fish a separate federal for-hire season through the summer and into the fall.

Around the snapper, the reefs give up vermilion snapper most of the year, gray triggerfish and greater amberjack in their short federal windows, and gag grouper in the fall. King and Spanish mackerel run the nearshore on the troll from spring into October, cobia migrate along the beach in spring, and the big boats with bunks make the long overnight run to the floating rigs more than 100 miles out for yellowfin tuna, wahoo, and mahi mahi from late spring into fall. The reef bottom fishing holds up all year, so there is no dead season here, just a closer, shorter one through the winter.

The Alabama ports compared

Three ports carry the fleet, and they differ more in size and format than in the fish, since all three work the same reef zone. Orange Beach is the deepest and most varied port on the coast, from two walk on head boats up through private sportfishers to the big boats with the bunks and range for an overnight run to the rigs, the whole fleet running to the Gulf through Perdido Pass. Its twin Gulf Shores shares the same water but runs almost entirely private six packs out of Fort Morgan Marina, no head boat, from a fast 25 foot reef boat up to a 46 foot sportfisher. West across Mobile Bay, Dauphin Island is the quieter port, a small private six pack fleet with the reefs close to the beach and a couple of bigger boats that sell a walk on seat, the nearest thing the island has to a party boat.

Getting to the Alabama coast

Alabama’s charter coast splits in two. The eastern pair, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, sit together at the far southeast corner of the state, about an hour from both Pensacola and Mobile, with the Orange Beach fleet running through Perdido Pass and the Gulf Shores boats from Fort Morgan Marina at the west end of the peninsula. Dauphin Island sits on its own to the west, a barrier island at the mouth of Mobile Bay reached over the three mile bridge, about 40 minutes south of Mobile and its airport. Pensacola and Mobile are the two airports to fly into, each within an hour of the eastern ports.

Alabama is one of four states on our Gulf of Mexico coast. The same red snapper reefs run west to Mississippi and the Louisiana tuna grounds, on to the big Texas fleets, with the Florida Panhandle just east. Pick a port for its full ranking, every boat scored on one national standard.