By Capt. Mike Grispo
I’ve been targeting snook primarily, as the bait has been plentiful and with warm water and strong tides, they are feeding regularly. On a beautiful, calm Wednesday morning I had a couple clients with me that were just looking to let me guide them to any species that was biting. I took them on my daily routine of deep troughs along mangrove shorelines and some potholes that were holding snook. We were catching a few fish here and there, but overall the bite was slow.
My phone rang and a fellow guide friend of mine said he heard someone spotted “3 acres of black drum”!! We had an idea of where the school was and I informed my clients it was a long ride, but might be worth it if we find them. We picked up and started heading north. I eventually spotted a small cluster of boats in the middle of open water and naturally we know something’s going on over there! I idled in and sure enough, 3 acres of black drum! Not one of them was less than 20lbs! Some of them were pushing 50! They were swimming near the surface and in between everyone’s boats. I’ve seen and caught these fish during this time of year twice before, so I was ready to get these guys hooked up quick.
I had a well-full of pilchards, but I knew that they weren’t going to go for them so I quickly tied on a couple small DOA jig heads and paddletail baits with 40lb fluorocarbon leader. I then had my clients begin casting directly into the school and working the bait up and down on the retrieve until one decided to eat. These fish were not necessary there to feed, so we had to present the bait correctly to entice the bite. It didn’t take long and they were battling it out with a couple monster drum on light tackle. We caught 3 and had at least 3 break off before we decided that was fun and it was time to move on to some other species. The big drum are almost inedible due to worms and honestly, taste. We went right back into my daily routine after that of snook, redfish, trout.
In the end, it pays to have good friends on the water because we all enjoy catching fish and watching others catch fish!