By Cam Staff
There’s no better feeling for a grouper angler than to be greeted by a calm ocean while heading out with a livewell full of pinfish and a cooler full of frozen minnows.
The numbers are marked in the electronics, and the run to that first ledge is full of eager anticipation for what the day might bring. Upon arriving over that structure, the screen lights up with bait and fish. They are down there, and rigging baits becomes a hurried exercise to get down to the bottom and see what can be hauled up.
But the following scenario has happened to anyone who has spent some time nearshore offshore. The grunts and snappers are all to eager to gobble those cigar minnows and pinfish, but the grouper just don’t seem interested. Or maybe the bite started strong and then shut down? How many times in this situation have you picked up and moved on to the next spot, sure that this particular rock has been picked clean by other anglers or that the fish you’re after have just developed a case of lockjaw?
Next time, before throwing in the towel on your first and likely the easiest to get to location, consider a change of bait before making the run. There’s a good chance the grouper are down there feeding, they’re just being picky. Those pinfish from the marina or those menhaden netted back in the Intracoastal don’t look or smell like what the fish are used to eating. Those frozen minnows might not even be close to the native prey on that particular structure. There’s no telling whether or not that bait even came from the same ocean.
Sometimes the fish can be easy, but in situations like these it can be worth finding some local bait to see if it will pique the interest of picky fish. Break out the sabiki rig and drop it down to jig up what these persnickety grouper are feeding on every day. Whatever it is, carefully take it off the hook, stick it on a jig, and drop it back down and see what happens.
Smaller snapper, fished live or butterflied, or a big chunk of a larger snapper can often be the ticket to pulling the largest grouper on a rock, reef or wreck out of its hole. The bait is fresh, and it looks and smells like what the resident grouper are used to eating. A hand-sized grunt is also an excellent option when the store-bought stuff isn’t working. And the larger sized baits have the added benefit of weeding out the bait thieves and less-desirable species when what you’re looking for is more than just a pull on the line.
Now this isn’t to say you should head out from the marina with an empty bait tank. In most situations, the store-bought stuff performs just as well and you don’t have to work for it. But when the bite shuts down, consider trying to match-the-hatch before you give up on your honeyhole.
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