Hey Folks...

I'm planning to head down to Galveston this weekend to try my luck on one of the fishing piers. I wanted to get some insight from anyone that has been fishing them recently as to which may be the better option. I'll likely be bringing my 7 year old son along with me...and possibly my wife & daughter as well...just in case that makes any difference between which pier may serve our purposes best.

As far as things to bring...should I be bringing along a chair to sit on or are there chairs/benches available? How about rod holders? I've seen pictures that seem to show some rod holders along the pier & other pictures that show folks just leaning their rods up against the railing. If leaning them against the railing is how it is done...is there a specific set up that you use to keep it from getting yanked over the railing? How far is it usually from the railing down to the surface of the water? As far as bait goes...is it best to just bring your own or are the prices for bait reasonable at either location?

If there are any other tips, pointers, reminders, etc. that you may want to share...that would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks...

K

KawikaX,
I have not been to 61st Pier, and only once to 91st.
This is about 91st St.
You will need to bring something to sit. Though there are some bench type things on the pier, it might be more comfortable to bring a chair. There are no rod holders, but it should be fine to lay the rods on the railing, if you are paying attention and your drag is set adequately, nothing should yank it.
I was there with my 4yo son and he almost dropped the rod, but it would not have been prevented by rodholders if I didn't catch it on time.
I believe the height of the railing to the water might change with the tide, but it is probably 20ft or so.
You can buy bait on the way at Autn Margie, on 61st st, as you come out of the highway, but there are some other shops. Fresh dead is better than frozen, and you will always catch something on shrimp. Fishbites work well too.
Are you after something specific or just fun?

Hoping to get into some of the bull and/or slot reds. Outside of that...trout or flounders are always welcome...anything else would be just for fun...

Also read your post about your adventures over on the Galveston Fishing Pier...looks like you guys had a good time out there.

Took my 7 yr old son down to Galveston for some fishing a couple of weeks ago. We fished 91st Pier at night and had action non stop...mostly catfish and trout (a few small reds and croaker). They bit everything we threw from finger mullet to gulp shrimp to fish bites. It was great because there was no crowd so we didnt have to worry about tangled lines or anything. We used carolina rigs and popping corks. We just bought the mullet at the pier.

Was checking up on them on yelp.com...only the 61st Street Pier was listed so I added a page for the Galveston Fishing Pier as well.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/galveston-fishing-pier-galveston

http://www.yelp.com/biz/61st-street-fishing-pier-galveston-3

I still haven't decided which to try tonight...but I'll probably decide after I drive down there & see how many folks are there at either location.

check both of their facebook pages. Both piers post reports throughout the day

I spent the day on 91st yesterday, had a great time with the wife. Caught a lot of croaker, whiting, and sand trout. Wasn't targeting anything big so it was nice to get a cooler full of eating fish.

Yep...I've been steadily following both piers for several weeks now just to keep up with the redfish run. My friend & I decided to give 61st street pier a try last night since it seemed like hardly anyone else on this forum has had any experience there. It was a decent pier...but pretty small. We got there pretty late (7 pm) or so...so it was pretty packed. My friend caught a couple of croakers & hard heads on shrimp. We were running late...so in our rush we forgot to bring smaller hooks to play around with the smaller fish out there. People around us were hooking into croaker & hard heads for the most part. While we were there...a group of guys hooked into a pretty nice sized redfish (see Facebook feed for pics). I think they either didn't have a redfish tag for it or no license all together. They got thrown off the pier after they were trying to clean the fish on the pier on their way out. I didn't even think that was allowed (to clean your fish on the pier).

Based on what I've seen from the Galveston Fishing Pier seems quite a bit bigger than the 61st Street Pier. I can't imagine it would be any less crowded. We brought our own bait with us...so we were using live finger mullet & cut mullet on our surf rods. We also used fresh & freshly dead shrimp on our bait rods. We got no bites on the surf rods. We stayed until midnight last night & the redfish mentioned above was the only bull that was caught while we were there (7 pm until midnight). There was one other slot red caught while we were there as well.

I plan to try out the Galveston Fishing Pier next week...and definitely plan to get there a lot earlier.

I was at 91st Friday and caught a bunch of small fish and a couple of sharks. I really like 91st and I either go there or Seawolf Park. I caught me a bull red at Seawolf a week ago, and several were also caught that night.

On last Friday when I was at 91st the weirdest thing happened. As I turned on Seawall from 61st, the water was almost still, hardly any waves. As I was unloading my gear and moving out to the middle of the pier, the wind started picking up from the south east to north west. Within a couple of hours, the winds were around 21 mph.

You might consider fishing at Seawolf Park, at either the pier of by a new looking pier close to the parking area. On the past two-three years, I've had one great night a year where I hooked into >5 bull reds within 3-4 hours. This was just using cut bait (sand trout, croaker, whiting) on big hooks.

I won't get into it, but I will never fish at 61st again. It isn't about the quality of the fish caught or the quality of the pier, but just the general way the customers are treated.

I've never fished off the 61st Pier but did visit it just to check things out last year. Cool place!

I hear a lot of people talking about the mistreatment they felt at the 61st street pier...but I didn't run into anything while I was there. I simply walked in...paid for my fee to fish...and was on my way. I plan to try the Galveston Fishing Pier this weekend...then probably try to go to Seawolf Park pier the weekend after that.

When you guys say cut bait...are you guys just cutting the bait fish in half or are you guys making bait strips/filets?

I cut off the head and tail, then cut the body in two parts and put those on a big hook. I use a piano wire leader with two hooks and a weight. You can buy those at Academy.

I just fish bottom and wait for the rod to make the big bend and wait for yards and yards of line to start running.

No doubt others do it in a different manner, but this has always worked best for me.

I cut bait in a lot of different ways dependent on need.

The most common way is to cut the head, tail off and "steak out" the rest of the body. Heads work good also so don't throw it away.

I have filleted out fish, trying to give a more moving profile.

I also fillet out the backbone, leaving everything else intact so it looks like a full fish and has lots of movement when in current.

Many of the croakers I caught last weekend came off of cut bait, small or thin Steaks on a #1 hook worked very well.

I don't use double drop rigs too often, when current or surf is high I will use a single drop rig, but use a modified fish finder rig when the surf is low enough to keep it from tangling.