The Mobile Bay jubilee, explained by people who wait up for it.
On a few hot nights every summer, the bay runs out of oxygen near the bottom and pushes flounder, crab, shrimp and eels into the shallows along the Eastern Shore. Locals walk in with lanterns and gigs. This page is the explainer, the conditions to watch and the place to report one.
Jubilee Watch
Possible| Wind | NW, 7 kn |
| Tide | Rising, high 2:26 pm |
| Water | 86° |
| Last sighting | None confirmed this season |
Tides today
What a jubilee is
Jubilees only occur in two places: the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay in Alabama and Tokyo Bay in Japan. A jubilee occurs because hypoxic water, water with very little oxygen in it, forces bottom-dwelling animals to the surface and toward the shore in search of oxygen.
Mobile Bay is built for it. The bay is shallow, so it heats fast. Several rivers pour fresh water on top of it, and that fresh water floats on the heavier salt water below. When the bay is calm and the layers do not mix, the salty bottom layer runs out of oxygen, and everything that lives down there has to move.
When the wind and the tide push that dead water toward the Eastern Shore, the animals come with it. Flounder lie in inches of water. Crabs crawl up the beach. That is the jubilee, and the word has been in use here since the 1800s.
Read the original post from 2015Ten signs one is coming
From the post that started this site in 2015.
- The bay is calm. Still water lets the salt settle to the bottom and the oxygen fall with it.
- It is hot. Warm water holds less oxygen than cold water.
- It rained in the afternoon. Rain washes extra food into the bay, and the plankton that eat it use up oxygen.
- It is night. Plankton stop making oxygen after dark and keep using it.
- The wind is out of the east, and gentle. An east wind pushes the surface water, and the low-oxygen water under it, toward the Eastern Shore. Too much wind mixes the layers and ends it.
- The tide is coming in. A rising tide carries the animals closer to the beach.
- The bay is shallow here. Shallow water heats faster and stays warm overnight.
- Fresh water is sitting on top. River water layered over salt water keeps the bottom from mixing.
- It is summer. June through September, and most often in the small hours before dawn.
- Someone on the shore is already awake. Every jubilee starts with one person who noticed the crabs.
If you go
A jubilee can last minutes or hours, and it ends the moment the wind shifts. Be ready before the call comes.
Where
The Eastern Shore of the bay, from Daphne south through Montrose, Fairhope and Point Clear. Public access at the Fairhope pier, the Daphne bayfront parks and the ends of the public streets that reach the water.
Bring
A lantern or headlamp, a flounder gig, a dip net, a cooler with ice and shoes you do not mind losing to the mud. Wade slowly. The bottom is soft and the water is dark.
The rules
Alabama fishing rules do not pause for a jubilee. Size and creel limits for flounder and crab still apply, and a saltwater license may be required. Check the current limits with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources before you go.
Report a jubilee
Saw one? Tell us where and when. A person reads every report before anything is published, so nothing posts on its own.
We publish the date, the place and a first name or town. We never publish your email.
Questions people ask
Can you predict a jubilee?
No. You can read the conditions, and the conditions above are the ones locals have watched for generations, but the bay decides. The widget on this page scores tonight's wind, water and tide against those conditions. It says "favorable", never "tonight".
What time of year?
Summer, from about June into September. Almost always overnight, most often in the hours before dawn.
Is it safe to eat the fish?
The animals are alive and moving toward oxygen, not sick. People have eaten jubilee flounder and crab here for well over a century. Keep them on ice and clean them the same morning.
Why only here and Tokyo Bay?
Both bays are shallow, warm in summer and layered with fresh river water over heavier salt water. That combination is rare, and it is the whole reason the event exists.