Inshore Grouper Fishing

This is the time of the year when you can go grouper fishing in a small boat without ever leaving sight of land. Today was one of those perfect days for this type of fishing trip. We had a light easterly wind in the morning, then dead calm around 1pm, then the west convection winds kicking up in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, this rock appears to have been fished hard recently. The best way to tell if an inshore rock has been fished, is the amount of tall seaweeds that are on the rocks. Typically when you catch a few grouper the fish will run for the cover of the rocks and your line tends to cut the seaweed down like a weed eater. And this was the case, after a nice warm growing season, the tall seaweeds where cut off at the roots. So my guess is someone else knows of this rock and recently fished it pretty hard. There was one piece of seaweed left which came up with this little grouper.
As you can see below there are no tall weeds left. Typically you can find rocks like this one by the tall seaweed. If the seaweed is not cut off by fishing or passing boats, they will grow to the surface.
The one little grouper 2 lb grouper minus the 3 lbs of seaweed.
The best part about inshore grouper fishing, is that the grouper on these rocks are not residents. Even after the rock has been fished out, the offshore grouper moving in to the shallow water will come across the rock and set up temporary residents. The key to a good inshore grouper rock is the rock most have good cover (hollow areas under the rock, tall grass) and plenty of near by food.

Good Luck
Zippyjr


Tide : Incoming
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 3/4 full
Temp: 92 F
Water Temp :84 F
Wind: 0-5 mph West
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 1 short grouper, 5 hound fish and 1 mackerel.

Fall Fishing is heating up

After Sunday's one redfish day, I thought we would go for round two. We left out of Jenkins creek to pick up whitebait. We hit the turn marker and the bait was thick. One cast and I could feel the extra weight of the bait fish in a 10 ft net. Which means I now have more bait than the live will hold. Skimmed off the larger baits and tossed in about 100 small baits (for live chum) and headed over to the Hernando Beach Channel.


We started at marker 5 and caught about 10 bluefish and jacks. While this was fun, we where looking for dinner. So we started moving in one cut at a time. The second turned out good. We had a double hook up on trout 25 and 26 inch trout, which filled the limit on 20+ inch trout.



We also caught a 12 inch mangrove snapper. I have seen bigger snapper around the rocks and I am thinking that it might be worth a shot to try to chum up the snapper.
We had a small bluefish on and this little cobia was chasing the bluefish trying to eat it. Clearly the cobia's eyes where bigger than it's mouth. So I tossed out a bait that would fit and he took it.

For those who have never caught a cobia, this is a baby, 40lb cobia are not uncommon. If you do catch one, they pack a big surprise, not only do they fight hard, once boated be very careful of there spines just behind their head. A typical place you would hold the fish when removing the hook.Much to our surprise we caught a 21 inch grouper. I've caught 10-16 inch grouper around the rock, but never one this big. A little bigger and he would have come home for dinner....

Over all it was a good day, we had non-stop catching and pretty good weather.

Good Luck,
Zippyjr

Tide : Rising
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 13 % full
Temp: 92 F
Water Temp :84 F
Wind: 5 mph NE - 15mph W
Bait: Whitebait
Results: 4 Trout, 1 Cobia, 3 Grouper, 2 Sea Bass, 1 Mangrove Snapper, 10 Jacks, 5 blue runners, 12 bluefish.

Tough Day Fishing, Great Day Snorkeling.

We went out today to continue to test the full moon theory, that the redfish tend to feed more at night than during the day. Since I had expected a slow day fishing, we did have a back up plan, we brought our snorkeling gear along, just in case.

We picked up whitebait near the two poles off the bayport channel. Over the last month I have really have not check any other area, since this area is very convenient. However each time, the whitebait numbers seem to be less and less. Today I could only get about dozen big baits, bigger then I wanted. The whitebait will spawn in August, and we'll have lots a little (too little) baits.

Fishing was a bust, we had two strikes both missed the hook. so I can not even call them and auto-release... We did a little lure fishing and had a couple of redfish follow the lure but no strikes. So it was time to go snorkeling.

We motored out to mark 21 in the Hernando Beach channel and I noticed what looked like glass minnows. As it turns out they where whitebait, the perfect size for redfish. Since we where done fishing we swam with the whitebait for while. It was really very interesting to see how the bait behaves. The bait seem to use us for shelter. Off in the distance I could see a couple of Spanish Mackerel cruising around the bait. While I do not recommend swimming in schools of bait fish, it was very interesting. And at least I now know where to find the right size whitebait.

We moved to a couple of other locations along the channel and found some green, red and white shrimp for our fish tank. As well as a sea horse, pipe fish and some scallops.

The seahorse is holding on to the and pipe fish.

Scallops, Pipe Fish and some grass.

Scallop and all eyes are on you...

One other interesting thing to note. Since this was a Sunday, I expected plenty of boaters on the "flats". When we got there there was only about 20 boats, I could here the motors while we where in the water. Once we got out of the water, it looks as if the boat parade had arrived. There must have been at least 80 boats...

Good Luck
Zippyjr

Snook Attack

Today a friend was visiting and wanted to go catch a few redfish. We headed out of Jenkins creek so we could pick up some whitebait on the way. We checked the area around the first turn maker and did not see any so we headed to tri-pod, nothing but big ballyhoo and pin fish. Checked smith rock, nothing. Went back to the turn marker and finally found 3 pods of bait. Over the last few weeks the turn marker is the only place I have found bait.

Once we loaded up with bait, we headed back to Centipede Bay. We spend too much time hunting bait and now the tide had turned. We only had about an hour to fish in the bay and hooked up with two redfish and lost them both! (That's called and auto release...)

The next up was the Hernando Beach Channel in the "cuts". The cuts are the deep reliefs between the rock piles that protect the channel from filling in with sand. I see many anglers there most seem to understand how to fish this area,. Today there was a couple of guys fishing and they anchored up in the middle of the cuts. This is where we catch fish, as you can image they left with out catching anything.

There is about 20 "cuts" along the north side of the channel

The place to anchor is about here and fish between the rocks

We moved from cut to cut tossing out live chum at each stop. One cut down from where the other guys where fishing, there was a big response from the chum. We could not tell what they where, but I suspected that they must have green backs that blended in well with the sea grass on the bottom. The one fish that size with a greenish back is a snook. We pitched a couple of baits with hooks and both of us hooked in to big snook.

The first pair broke off since I had trouble releasing the anchor and fighting the fish to give chase. The next one, I was ready and released the anchor and off we went. I use a trolling motor to chase the fish so it will not spook the other fish. We came back to the anchor thinking that we must have spooked the fish. Only to find another big response to the live chum. This went on for about an hour, then everything stopped. We ended up releasing 5 snook all the 10-12# range. The one draw back to this kind of actions is no one wants to stop and get the camera out to take pictures... Maybe one day I'll get a helmet cam...

The next cut we caught a couple of trout for dinner and decided it was time to call it a good day.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

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Tide : Falling : H 3.0 10:01 am : L 0.40 6:21pm
Water Clarity : Clear
Moon Phase: 78% full waxing gibbous
Temp: 78F
Water Temp : 85F
Wind: 5mph SE morning- 10mph W afternoon.
Bait: Whitebait (green backs, greenies)
Results: 5 Snook release - 2 Red Fish (auto release) - 2 trout

Catching Whitebait

Since I mentioned catching whitebait (greenbacks) I thought I would give a little information about using it as live bait. The best live bait is of course pilchard (aka, whitebait, greenies, greenbacks, fish crack etc) every predatory fish ( Redfish, Snook, Grouper, Snapper, Dolphin, Tuna, Sailfish, Cobia, etc) will eat them. Pin fish work well, but are mainly used offshore for grouper. And the ol standby is mud minnows. And of course there is shrimp, one of the easiest, widely available bait around.

Bar none whitebait is my favorite.
But they come with a high cost, in efforts, equipment and time. In the spring catching whitebait can be difficult. It is not difficult to spend the day looking for bait, traveling 20 miles searching without success. And few days I have spent so much time looking, I ran out of time and went home. Once you find them, most of the time you have to chum them close enough to net then. Of course you have make the chum first (jack mackerel, oats, menhaden oil and garlic oil). I use a food processor to puree the chum in to a fine, gooey, sticky, stinky, fish paste. One important note, DO NOT USE YOUR WIFE'S FOOD PROCESSOR, your food will never taste the same.

The mixing lab... One quart of chum should last several trips.

Then there is the cost in equipment. First off you need a good cast net at least an 8 ft net (when opened it spans 16 ft). The average cost for a net is around $100 for an 8 ft and $120 to $200 for larger nets. I have several nets, two 8ft, one 10 ft and the monster 12 ft. The 10 ft is my favorite, a hand tied 1/4, 1.5 lbs per foot net. A 1/4 net is good for smaller baits since the small baits will not gill, but it also sinks slower. My 12 ft net is 3/8 in net, it sinks fast, covers a lot of area and weighs a ton. I can only throw it a few times then I done. Since it is so big, I make sure the first throw counts. (I use this method to throw the cast net.) Then there is the time spent cleaning the nets. At the end of the day they must be washed and dried then properly stored. Then a couple of times a season they must be soaked in water and fabric softener over night then rinsed and dried. This will keep the net soft, if the net become stuff, it does not open as well and tends to do damage to the bait.

Once the bait is caught, they need to be very happy and have deluxe accommodation in the form of a very good live well.

The live well in a nut shell; the water is pumped in to the bottom of the live well, from ocean, then it drains out of the top, back in to the ocean. The live well needs to have water flowing in all the time. Depending on the size of the live well, will depend on the size of the pump(s) and high speed pickup(s) needed.

Since I have built all my live wells, if anyone is interested I did post a DIY live well project. In my small live I have one high speed pickup and one 750gph pump with a float switch. When the boat is on a plane the high speed pick moves about 800 gph and when the boat is not on a plane the pump moves about 500 gph. This creates a lot of current in the live well and the bait is only happy when swimming. Also whitebait have a very high metabolism, which requires lots a O2 and they produce lots wastes proteins. This is why a flow through live well is a must. If the proteins are not removed from the live well, all the bait all die at the same time. The protein comes in the form of white to off white bubbles, when the bubbles start to stack up it's on only a matter of minutes before all the bait is dead and all the hard work and time involved is wasted.

Now why would anyone work so hard to catch live whitebait. Simple because they are worth it. When I have 100+ baits, I can move from area to area tossing out a handful of bait at each stop. If I see the fish busting the top of the water (only takes 1 or 2 minutes), then I know my efforts are about to pay off.

Whitebait is not for everyone. If you are not willing to go the extra mile or 20... do not waste your time trying to catch whitebait. You can pick up some shrimp or throw gulp jigs. But if fishing is your passion and you have not fished with whitebait, then you are missing out on the most intense fishing you'll ever experience.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

Fish Candy... Come and get it

Summer is here... I had a few hours mid day to go fishing... I heard reports that the whitebait has moved in to the Bayport area. Since the winds where calm I thought I would run over and check out Smith Rock. This is normally where it catch whitebait. When I got there, I saw nothing but a few ballyhoo. I did not want to make a day of whitebait hunting, so I decided just to head back to Centipede Bay and catch the ol standby, mud minnows. On the way across the Bayport channel I saw a few birds working and then saw the rain. When the whitebait are on the surface it looks like rain. I threw the net a couple of times and had plenty.
The report I got was the bait was small, just the right size for redfish. After the first cast, I could see they where all big, perfect for grouper bait. When I catch smaller baits I like to have about 100 or more, so I can live bait chum. Nothing gets the fish turned on like live chum.
My first stop was at the end of the bay, I call it the redfish super store. When I just need a quick fish for dinner, I'll stop by here. About 98% of the time there will be 3-5 redfish in the back. I usually fish 3 lines, the first in the back the other two on the front sides of this area. Funny thing about this area, this is the only place where I have had 3 redfish hit 3 line at the exact same time. Today only two lines went of with in 2 seconds of each other. Almost like the redfish were just sitting around looking at the bait, then something, triggers them to bite. I caught the fish at the top and lost the second. It's hard to fight two fish at the same time. I decided to hang out for another 10 minutes and caught two more. Then moved to a very rocky bay.
This is not really a rocky, it's one big rock, jagged, full of snags and very hard to fish. But the redfish, love it. Since I had one in the box for dinner, I decided to use up the rest of the bait and chum. I saw 3 fish at the entrance of this bay and a couple more swimming around. I tossed out the chum and the water came alive. I broke off 3 times and release 2 others.
Then it was time to head back to the office to wrap up the end of week market reports.

Good Luck
Zippyjr

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Tide : Top 3.3ft @ 1:54pm
Water Clarity : Very Clear
Moon Phase: 0% Full: New Moon
Temp: 83 F
Water Temp : 73 F
Wind: W 10mph
Results: 24 in Redfish 4 releases 1 jack
Bait: Whitebait aka fish candy aka Greenbacks.