The 12th Annual Orange Beach October Fishing Rodeo gets under way on Monday, and you can use Dauphin Island as your base of operations for the entire tournament.
For those not familiar with the October Fishing Rodeo, it's a month long competition with cash prizes awarded to anglers competing in several categories: gag grouper, amberjack, king mackerel, red snapper, triggerfish, redfish, and speckled trout.
The organizers of the Orange Beach October Fishing Rodeo have raised the prize amounts this year to attract even more anglers to participate.
Remember last year's coastal cleanup event? How about the on the year before? No, we didn't think so. They were both canceled because Mother Nature had a different plan in mind for Dauphin Island.
This year Mother Nature has been much nicer to us. The Alabama Coastal Cleanup is back on it's annual schedule.
Saturday is the day. Volunteers all along the Alabama Gulf Coast will spend the morning cleaning up the coastline. The Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources is hoping to see approximately 4000 volunteers come to spend the morning making Alabama's waterways and coastline clean and litter free.
If you're looking for a way to feel really good about yourself, think about coming out for the event. A few hours' work will leave you feeling terrific. You'll have a great time and meet some really good people too.
Once again fantastic fishing conditions are giving anglers all the fish they can handle off the coast of Dauphin Island. The 27th annual Sertoma/Pepsi Family Fishing Rodeo got off on a record setting pace yesterday as the first day of the tournament drew to a close.
Sertoma opener ends with flurry
DAUPHIN ISLAND -- The anglers in the 27th annual Sertoma/Pepsi Family Fishing Rodeo from a ho-hum Saturday afternoon into a fish-weighing frenzy as many boats lined up at the scales with only minutes left before the 6 p.m. deadline.
And the fish brought in to Dauphin Island Marina at the last minute were worth the wait.
Tyler Kennedy had a 26.09-pound red snapper, which crew mate Bill McRae had a 35.48-pound grouper.
The largest fish of the day was a 67.27-pound amberjack hooked by Michael Pierce.
This weekend the 27th annual Sertoma/Pepsi Family Fishing Rodeo will take place on Dauphin Island at Dauphin Island Marina.
Anglers will compete in 18 separate categories including flounder, red snapper, king and Spanish mackerel. Of special note to anglers are the jackpot payouts for particular categories:
With fishing all along the Alabama Gulf Coast as good as it has been this summer, one or more records are bound to fall. This is also the last hurrah for summer - the labor day weekend. Better get on out to Dauphin Island and enjoy a great weekend of fishing at the 27th annual Sertoma/Pepsi Family Fishing Rodeo.
The process of building and rebuilding on Dauphin Island continues but not without a good measure of debate and controversy.
Yesterday's Dauphin Island Property Owners' meeting was a good example of how uncertain things have become for Dauphin Island's west end. Here are some of the highlights:
West End Berm
Berm construction appears to be on track to begin in late December or early January. The deadline for completion has been extended to June 2007.
The berm will be build along the shoreline as it exists today. West end Dauphin Island vacation properties under water today will remain under water until or unless the beach is restored by some other process. The berm plans do not call for restoration of beach front properties. Where a vacation home sits partially in the water, the berm will be built immediately to the water side of the home's pilings.
West End Dauphin Island Public Beach
The debate between the grass roots organization Save our Shores and the Dauphin Island Property Owners' Association continued during yesterday's meeting. The matter in question is the interpretation of wording in the original deed to the west end Dauphin Island beach area. Save our Shores contends that the deed's wording prevents the Dauphin Island Property Owners' Association from turning over the west end Dauphin Island beach to the town for public use.
The Dauphin Island Property Owners' Association board has decided to submit the document for legal review because much of the property covered by the deed is currently under water, which they believe affects what they can do with the property.
In the meantime west end Dauphin Island vacation home reconstruction continues. Although there are fewer lots today on which some of these homes can be rebuilt, those that are rebuilding are doing so with updated construction codes. They're building higher and stronger than before.