By Capt. Philip Watson
November is such an amazing month to go fishing. Offshore wrecks are producing tuna and kingfish, and nearshore ledges are holding gag grouper, red grouper, and hogfish. The bait is moving, which gets the fish moving, which makes inshore gag grouper fishing in full swing. While riding offshore, make sure to watch for birds and bait balls and don’t hesitate to troll around them with your favorite Manns or Yozuri trolling lures. I favor Yozuri crystal minnows that dive 12’ because kingfish can’t resist them, and they aren’t too large for Spanish mackerel to eat.
Fishing ledges and hardbottom out to 90’ will produce good numbers of grouper and hogfish. My bait of choice this time of year is a 2-3’ pinfish and live shrimp. Once an area is chummed up, start to drop back those pinfish for gags and bits and pieces of shrimp for hogfish. You can fish both baits on knocker rigs, just don’t forget to beef up your grouper set-ups. This time of the year you can go bigger on the leader.
A while back I went fishing with a good buddy of mine, Josh Hattaway. We had one of those days where we left the fish biting! We started the morning loading the live well with white bait and pinfish, then headed about 45 miles west of Anna Maria Island, picking away at red grouper, lane snapper, vermillion, and big red snapper. We decided to move on once we caught a few and had a few break off. Our next stop was a wreck where we had almaco jacks and yellowtail snapper chummed up behind the boat, where we had so many yellowtails the water was gold. Once we figured out how to get the fish away from the barracudas and monster sharks, we had an absolute bail session! We limited out in about an hour or so and had to leave them chewing.
The fishing is almost at its peak for the season. Please make sure to call and get on the books, so we can get you out to fill your freezers.
Contact Capt. Philip Watson at 941-226-1100
