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Mississippi Sound & the Pascagoula River Marsh
Capt. Barry Brown
June 9, 2007
Pascagoula River - Saltwater Fishing Report
It's Time To Fish With Live Pogy
My favorite live bait for catching redfish, speckled trout, and flounder is juvenile menhaden. In the Pascagoula River marshes schools of young menhaden are plentiful beginning around March or April, and reach adequate size for fishing in May. They remain the live bait of choice until around October when they migrate out to open water.
Menhaden, or pogy as we call them, have many qualities that make them a fantastic bait to attract fish. First of all, they are a very oily fish so predators can detect them by scent and track them down. That expands your area of presentation to anywhere the current carries the scent.
Another feature of menhaden that makes them irresistible to fish is their coloration and shape. Pogies have flashy silver sides with a dark dorsal area. They are herring-shaped fish having a compressed body with tall sides. Having such broad silver sides makes pogies visible from longer distances, again increasing the area of presentation of your bait.
Menhaden are always in motion. They just never stop swimming, even when they are on your hook. Mullet and cocohoe minnows tend to settle down and may even lie on the bottom, but pogies keep swimming around and around covering as much area as your rigging allows. A bait that is constantly in motion, has big flashy silver sides, and secretes its own chum…what more could you want?
To produce the most action hook a pogy through the body about halfway between the dorsal fin and tail. Hooking him there gives him the most mobility and he will swim upward as far as your rigging allows. If you are bottom fishing and have the weight 12 inches from the hook, the pogy will swim in a 24" circle always striving upward toward the surface. If you are fishing in strong current you may have trouble keeping the pogy on bottom when hooked in the tail. The tail and side resist the water and lift the bait to the surface. When fishing in current you will probably do better to hook the pogy through the upper part of the eye sockets. That method will keep the pogy facing the current and will create very little resistance or lift.
As with most everything there is a downside. Menhaden are very difficult to keep alive. They must be aerated continually, and the cooler the water the better. Most any aerated live well will keep them alive for several hours, but you have to put them into the aerated well immediately when you catch them or they will die. They cannot be transported in a bucket for even a few minutes.
Finally, you will need a small cast net to catch your menhaden. The hard part to catching pogy is locating the schools and not spooking them as you get into casting position. The best time to catch pogy is dawn and dusk when the water is cooler and calm. The huge schools of menhaden shimmer on the surface at dawn and dusk and you can spot them from long distances. If you find yourself looking for menhaden in the middle of the day you will probably be frustrated. In the warmer and brighter part of the day menhaden stay deeper making it difficult to locate them. There are a few things to watch for that will help you locate pogy when they are not on the surface. Look for oil slicks on the water that may indicate a school of oily fish is underneath. Also, pay close attention for an infrequent flick of a tail on top of the water. Even when the schools are deep a stray pogy will occasionally swim up and break the surface with a quick flick of his tail. And last but most important, watch the pelicans. Pelicans diving in a location are a dead giveaway that the pogies are there in large numbers.
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