Amberjacks Offshore

by Capt. James Marko

It’s that time of the year when our water is flat calm and you can run 30 plus miles to fish some public numbers for some cool deep-water species. In this article, we’ll discuss a few must-haves and some tips to have a successful day offshore. Bait and chum are going to be the main ingredients to a successful day offshore. You can fish about any public wreck, about 30 plus miles, and find a good quantity of fish. This time of the year I really like to take out a couple blocks of chum and shake them till I get the flow I want. I’ll put one block off of each side of the boat. Once I get the slick I want going, I start live bait chumming. Anything under 6 inches gets flicked off the back. Anywhere from 2-3 at a time, but be smart not to waste it all. For example, I went out with the owner of NautiKnots (an apparel company) and my best friend Capt. Mike 36 miles Sunday and we had a blast. When we got to the spot we weren’t the only boat there, but we found a nice patch of structure and made the most of it. Mike and I started working the chum bags till we had a nice slick going and started live chumming while they deep dropped. They both immediately got slammed by some lane snappers. As they were reeling up I saw streaks that indicated Amberjack to me. Immediately I tossed a bunch of bait out because I knew they would chase it to the surface and stay around if there was enough live bait out there. Well, low and behold, I was right and we had about a dozen at one time of 60 plus pound AJs. Mike and I started free-lining baits and immediately doubled up. I passed the rod off and hooked into another. Well here’s where things got crazy! The Goliath knew there were some hook-ups and decided to play, too. The AJ I had on got slammed and ripped the rod out of my hand (not my proudest moment) and the other rod got snapped in half when a Goliath blew up Ken. Mike and Ken still landed two studs, but I wasn’t happy so I dropped a chunk of Barracuda and let the owner of NautiKnots yank the menace up. It didn’t take long, we had him up but no rods in his mouth. All in all, a good day, got home just in time for NFL.

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