Midmorning under a cloudless sky, and Denise, who politely declined to give her last name, was 1,000 feet out and 20 feet above the Gulf of Mexico cleaning a saltwater catfish. Her boyfriend, Monte, thin as a Popsicle stick, was reeling up a bare hook.
“Felt like a mackerel,” he said. “First time I fished here I caught a cobia.” He checked his rig and rebaited with a thumb-size chunk of cut bait.
Denise, Monte, and 10 dozen or so other fishermen were scattered along the Gulf State Park fishing pier—a concrete and wooden monstrosity that juts 1,540 feet into the Gulf from the spit of sand that separates Gulf Shores, Alabama, from neighboring Orange Beach. The pier—and the surf—attracts a community of sorts: locals, vacationers, seasonal regulars. But all…
