Capt. Bart Marx
Hello fellow anglers! April in S.W. Florida brings changing water temperatures. As the waters warm up the migration of the pelagic species gets in full travel mode. The king mackerel tend to like the waters from 68° to 74°. This too is when there is plenty of bait around, from just off the beach out to thirty miles. Rely on your eyes to spot the diving birds to let you know where there is bait. Trolling is a great method to harvest king mackerel, match the hatch with trolling spoons. Also, this time of year the red and gag grouper start to migrate, the reds start to come closer to shore. The gag grouper, as the waters warm, tend to go out deeper. As they transition, the reds will come as close as the 60’ range, where the gags will move out to 60’ to 80’. To harvest grouper, some like to drift fish. Drifting takes lots of weight to keep your bait in the strike zone. You can also bottom fish, anchoring up your boat and build life and draw the fish closer to your boats strike zone. This way, I like to start with frozen baits that I have onboard. You can chum or not, as the fish that you catch purge and create a natural underwater chum slick. And if you have live baits, you can use them as the bite slows with the frozen stuff. Also, you can have a bonus rod drifting out behind the boat for a king or Bonita. If you are fishing a structure you can chum and possibly get some snapper, like yellowtail or mangroves. And this time of year, there should be some hungry predators like sharks to deal with. So don’t be surprised if they steal part of your catch before you get it to the boat! For yellowtail, you may have to free-line some baits to harvest these guys. When you free- line, that is just a hook and a bait and strip the line off the spool so the bait floats down with the other pieces of chum and bait. It all should fall at the same rate. This is where fluorocarbon may produce better bites; you may even have to use twenty-pound test. When using braid, you may have to use a longer leader, 6’ to 8’ long, to get the hook away from the colored braid. If you do not have a boat that is capable of venturing out to these depths you can call Capt. Bart Marx or e-mail me to book. Check my website for charter information, alphaomegacharters.com and always remember singing drags and tight lines make me smile. <*(((((>{