Catching Winter Grouper and Snapper
Winter is finally upon us, and with the water cooling into the 60’s, grouper and snapper are migrating into shallow offshore and deep inshore waters.
On calm days between fronts, anglers with boats can make short runs out of Dunedin, and Clearwater to Veteran’s Reefs (they’re all within 10 miles of shore and just a few miles apart). Once there, locate likely structure and start dropping baited lines down. If your first spot doesn’t pan out, just pull anchor, locate another structure and drop baits again. The fish are there, you just have to find them.
Shore bound anglers can fish the channels running under the two Dunedin Causeway bridges. Both channels are around 30 feet deep and always hold keeper gag grouper, mangrove snapper and black drum that are sure to put bow in your rod, a smile on your face and some fine dinner on your plate. Just remember that black drum larger than 10 pounds or so are usually full of worms and should be released to fight again.
The key to catching these fish offshore and from the bridges is chum. I like to weight my chum bag with a pound or so of lead and lower it on a line to about 10 feet off the bottom. That way the chum is dispersed right under where you’re fishing and will draw the fish within easy reach of your location.
For gag grouper, a drop rig on 40-pound test mono or fluorocarbon leader with two to three ounces of lead, an 8-0 circle hook and two to three feet of leader on both your lead line and hook line will position your baits right in the strike zone when your weight is resting on the bottom. Just take up the slack when your weight hits bottom.
When grouper fishing, I like to start baiting with frozen squid and/or sardines. This always gets the smaller fish to bite and tear up the baits to disperse chunks of chum into my strike zone. Once I’ve made a couple of drops with the dead bait, I start dropping nose-hooked pinfish down to get the big boys interested.
Targeting snapper is a bit different. Chumming will entice the sharp-eyed snapper off the bottom rocks where they like to hang, so they should be fished on a knocker rig made from 20-pound fluorocarbon leader, a quarter to a half ounce of lead and a 2-0 or 3-0 circle hook.
Live or frozen white baits (pilchards) make great snapper baits. I like to start by dropping chunks of bait into the strike zone to make the snapper stupid. Once they’ve chomped on a few chunks they get really competitive; just stick a hook in a chunk and drop it into the strike zone. You’ll fool them every time!
For the best in bait, tackle and rigging to tackle these, or any of the dozens of other fish species that inhabit our waters, just stop into Barracuda Bob’s on your way out. We’re happy to hook you up with the goods and a few fishing hot spots that are sure to make your day!
See y’all out there,
Capt. Joe