Amelia Island Fishing Articles

If you have ever spent time fishing from a pier, you've probably visited that mystical place located as far from the beach as the pier will take you; The End Of The Pier. Many big fish have been caught at The End Of The Pier, and many big fish stories have been told there too.

For some strange reason I've never been able to exactly understand, The End Of The Pier is much different from the rest of the pier. Fishermen tend to congregate at The End Of The Pier. Fish tend to congregate there too, I guess, because most hardened pier fishermen seem to always catch the most and the biggest fish at The End Of The Pier. A visit to The End Of The Pier will always reveal some familiar faces; great pier fisherman, it seems, only fish at The End Of The Pier.

I've fished at piers in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and a few other places too. There is always an aura at The End Of The Pier, and the fishermen there always seem different from the ones you'll find closer to the beach. They're friendlier, more willing to swap stories, carry much more fishing gear, and always seem more carefree and happier than the fishermen closer to the beach. It seems as if they know they are fishing in the correct location and that sooner or later they'll be rewarded for their long walk with a big fish.

All piers have tourists; people who don't fish but just walk out to see what the water looks like, to watch the birds, or to watch the fishermen. Most tourists will visit The End Of The Pier; it seems some unknown force draws them there. Some will gaze for long periods of time at the water under The End Of The Pier, and most will document their journey with a photograph or two.

Even tourists, many of whom have never even been fishing, seem to be magically affected by The End Of The Pier and for some reason seem to know that the fishermen they find there are much different from the ones they pass on the walk out.

On the days that I fish at The End Of The Pier, I'm always asked many questions by the visiting tourists; what fish are caught here, what baits do you use, how long is the pier, have you caught anything today. On the days that I fish closer to the beach, I'm usually greeted with a friendly "Hello" when the tourists walk by, but not much more; they seem to be saving their questions for the experts they can see in the distance at The End Of The Pier.

My Dad has always been a fisherman who appreciates the value of The End Of The Pier. No matter what pier we fish on, he's not content unless he's fishing at The End Of The Pier. If we arrive at the pier and find that an earlier fisherman has already staked claim to my Dad's favorite spot, we'll set up our rods fifty or a hundred feet away and start fishing, but he seems to spend more time watching the guys at The End Of The Pier than he does watching his rods. Somehow he knows that his odds of catching the big one are greatly diminished because he's not in the right location; he doesn't seem to try as hard if he's not fishing at The End Of The Pier.

The inspiration for typing all of this came to me today while I was fishing on the pier with my Dad. We arrived to find the pier virtually empty, but a lone fisherman was set up at The End Of The Pier. I parked our pier cart next to a bench about 100 feet closer to the beach, and when we started to fish (my Dad always has his lines in the water first), he immediately began catching fish. Not the coveted "great big" fish, but fish nonetheless.

I recognized the fisherman at The End Of The Pier. I didn't know his name but I knew I'd seen him fishing at the pier before, so I walked out to say hello and to obtain the answer to the inevitable "Got Fish?" question that I knew my Dad would ask me immediately on my return. Seems that he'd been there for a few hours, and hadn't caught a thing. How could that be? He was fishing at The End Of The Pier!

I walked back to where my Dad was fishing and told him "Nope. No fish." My Dad was still catching fish, but at the same time watching the guy at The End Of The Pier. And then a miracle happened; the guy at The End Of The Pier packed up his gear and started walking towards us!

It's a terrible thing to drag your pier cart the length of the pier only to arrive at The End Of The Pier and find that somebody else got there first. But it's a joyful moment when you suddenly realize that the fisherman at The End Of The Pier is going home, and that you are next in line to commandeer that magical spot! The lone fisherman stopped and chatted for a minute, asked us what baits we were using, wished us good luck and told us goodbye because he had to stop fishing and go home to get ready for work.

As he we watched him walking away, I knew what the next question from my Dad was going to be. "Do you want to move out to The End Of The Pier?" Since the fisherman that was leaving was the only fisherman we could see when we looked toward the beach, I didn't feel the urgency to move that my Dad did, but I began to get the pier cart ready for the final hundred foot thrust to The End Of The Pier.

It only took us a few minutes to get locked and loaded and we had our baits back in the water, but thirty minutes of fishing later we hadn't had the first bite. I had just put fresh bait on two rods and tossed them back out and when I turned around and saw something that was utterly amazing; my Dad was walking down the pier headed back toward the beach, rod in hand, two fresh baits dangling in the afternoon breeze. He went right back to the spot we had been fishing prior to the final move, tossed his baits in the water, and in a minute or two caught another fish! Could my Dad have finally realized that it's possible to catch fish anywhere other than The End Of The Pier?

When we'd start the walk out to the pier, I used to ask my Dad "Where do you want to fish today?" But after getting the same answer for so many years, I finally stopped asking; I just unload the cart in the parking lot and instinctively head for The End Of The Pier. The next time we go to the pier, I doubt he'll remember where he caught the most fish today, and I'll instinctively drag the cart as far as we can go, hopefully to The End Of The Pier.

One of the few bad things about fishing at The End Of The Pier (other than it's a long walk and you have to answer a lot more questions when you fish there) is that the small baitfish we catch, mullet, are usually hanging around near the beach. So if we need bait, I have to take the cast net and a bucket and walk the entire length of the pier back to the beach to catch them, and then walk the entire length of the pier again to deliver them to where my Dad likes to fish.

Now I have something that maybe I need to ponder. The baitfish usually hang around by the beach. The big fish eat the baitfish. The pier is 2400 feet long. When we surf fish, we certainly can't cast 2400 feet, yet we catch fish. Could it be that maybe, all these years, we've been fishing at The Wrong End Of The Pier?

The next time we're both sitting at The End Of The Pier, waiting for the big fish to bite, I'll have to ask my Dad about that but I've got a feeling I already know what he's going to say.

Article By Amelia-Island-Fishing.Com Staff