Gone Fishin’ – Traveling with Rich & Julie
It might look like Rich is fishing but he isn’t. Here’s the story…
Today we got up early and headed to Walmart to get one-day fishing licenses for the state of Alabama.
As soon as we entered the building, we were bombarded with Mardi Gras decorations.
I’ve never seen anything like it before. In Ohio, red hearts and Valentines come out right after January 1.
I might have to buy some of these to take home to the granddaughters. People in Ohio don’t see this in their local Walmart.
Anyway, back to the fishing story.
Rich gathered all the fishing equipment and I packed drinks and snacks. Our new friend Alex tagged along too.
It was a frustrating morning as we discovered that nobody sells fishing licenses in Alabama. The process is to go online they say. One-day non-resident fishing licenses are supposed to be only $8.55 but are not available for purchase online either.
So, after Walmart told us no, we tried a few bait and tackle shops. Still, the answer was no. Then we went to the Gulf State Park Headquarters because we wanted to fish in Shelby Lake which is in the state park. They didn’t even sell them. They said we had to go online. But online doesn’t sell one-day licenses!
Everyone told us we had to purchase fishing licenses online, but online said that one-day non-resident licenses were not sold online and needed to be purchased at the local WFF office. WTF is WFF?
We called two other Walmart locations and they do not sell fishing licenses. Neither did the National Wildlife Refuge. No one was helpful.
I was beginning to get perturbed.
Finally, we called a game warden personally. We told him the situation and he couldn’t help either. But he did acknowledge that the fine for fishing without a license is $50 plus $100 court costs, per person. Thank you very much for that information. Good to know. Not.
Next, we checked the state of Florida because we are quite close to the state line. We received nearly the same information and run around as Alabama gave us.
Why don’t they want to make it easy for visitors to fish for only one day? It’s all about the money and they think you will just give in and pay $35 for a seven-day license. Nope. We are not paying $70 to fish for a couple of hours.
We succumbed to the fact that we would not be spending the day fishing as planned, but our friend Alex could because she is over 65, and is staying in Alabama for a couple more months so she went ahead and purchased a yearly non-resident fishing license for seniors at $60 online and it was immediately sent to her email.
A one-day non-resident permit should be just as easy to do. Just saying.
She wanted to fish and she wanted Rich to teach her because she had never fished in a freshwater lake before. It was fun to watch Rich give her lessons.
We went ahead and found a gorgeous spot on Shelby Lake to picnic and fish.
We picnicked for lunch on some meat, cheese, crackers, sub sandwiches, and chips, and I got a few good pictures. We like to keep small snack bags of chips in the RV for picnics.
This is a Northern Mockingbird and I don’t believe I have ever seen one or photographed one before.
This is a Great-tailed Grackle which is also a first for me.
The grackles stayed close by in a tree just in case we dropped any crumbs. I bet they are used to being fed.
And this flock of American Coots swam by the bobber more than once.
I’m pretty sure this is some kind of military helicopter flying above us. The fact that it has no doors gives it away.
As fun as it was, it was quite breezy and chilly by the lake so we only stayed about two hours.
Not a single bite, or even a nibble, but we still had a lot of fun sort of fishing today. And our new friend Alex can now say that she has fished in a freshwater lake.
We came back to the campground and sat around a fire for the first time since leaving Ohio.
Another day in paradise is in the books.
Thanks for coming along with us on our adventures.
(As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a commission for purchases made through links in this post.)
