New to the forum but leaving with the family this weekend August 5th thru August 7th to Rockport would like to know if anyone has had any luck fishing at the Fulton Pier at night. Also what would be the best bait to use. Any information would be appreciated.

You can usually catch fish on most lighted piers at night during the summer, mostly speckled trout. Live shrimp works, but I would use Gulp shrimp, DOA shrimp, spec rigs, small silver spoons, etc. A lot (most) of them will be undersized but should be entertaining. The Cpoano Bay bridge pier on the north side of town is generally good too. I prefer to walk till I spot bait activity or fish popping the surface and/or darting by on the outer edges of the lights, then fish. At sundown, most piers will get busy. I generally wait till 11 pm or so, then go out when all the tourists are heading back to their motels. Speaking of which, make sure you fish the outer rim of the lighted areas, seems like most of the bigger specs tend to hang around in this zone.

Thanks for the responses I will let you know how my weekend turned out

That's a big 10/4 on most of the bigger trout patrolling the egde of the lighted area. When pier fishing at night I've had great success free shrimping or throwing DOA's, I normally cast at least 10 yrds into to dark water & drag back slow into the light. Give your bait a little action, pull to the surface & let it fall naturally. Most strikes will come when the bait is falling. Just a little advice, if free shrimping make sure you're not using stainless steel hooks. Especially with the small trout they will sometimes swallow your hook & you'll kill the fish if you try and get your hook back. The fish stands a better chance of survival if you cut the line as close to the hook as possible & turn him loose. To be honest, I don't know how long it actually takes for a steel hook to dissolve in salt water but they'll certainly dissolve alot faster than the SS hooks. Good luck!

i was in rockport last week and peoplke were catching trout on glowing sassy shad. i caught trout on live shad.

Welcome to the forum, sprusonefan!

What seems to be the best color in the DOA, gulp shrimp etc?
Roger

Depends on water color and if you're fishing day or night. Dirty water usually calls for darker baits (purple with chart tail), clearer water you can use glow/red tail, new penny (Gulp) or several other colors. At night, I prefer the glow baits or something in silver. The spec rigs work well in the lights too, you will just have to experiment a little with color. White/pink, white/chart are usually good. Some nights they prefer one color over another.

I live in Fulton, there are 9 bazillion dinks around those piers at night. I guess if you have a lot of patience to wade thru the babies you might get a couple of keepers. I went to the Copano bridge the other night and the little trouts were swarming all over the place, tearing up some big shrimp under the lights.
I didn't get a keeper out of about 30 I caught before I got wore out on it, but there were a couple of other guys that had a couple of keeper trout. They were using tandem rigged soft plastics, I was using mirrolures, tops and sinkers.

I guess the best color is the one they are hitting on at the moment. I know I have always leaned towards white.
I have never seen so many dinks as there are the last few years. A few years back , we caught a bunch of little dinks pier fishing in Fulton. I thought, hey ! give these fish a couple of years & there is going to be some fantastic trout fishing. It just didn't happen..we must be catching their off spring now.
Roger