On a recent trip offshore, a good friend and myself were discussing live bait and the fact that we hadn’t seen any cigar minnows in a long time, and sure enough, right when we dropped the first Sabiki down, there they were. The cigar minnow is by far my favorite bait for snapper and grouper. Quite often the baits aren’t on the bottom for a minute or so before they’re gobbled up. We were in the 90-foot stuff just offshore of the Bethel buoy.
Speaking of the buoy, it’s holding big schools of sardines. Toss out a #8 Sabiki with a two-ounce bank sinker in the middle of the school and crank the baits in quick before the ‘cuda’s take everything. While you’re bait fishing, send a sardine out on a wire stinger rig for fun. We’re not the only ones that know the baits are there. We have caught tons of fish at the buoy from African pompano to cobia, dolphin, bonito, and countless barracuda, which incidentally makes great grouper bait.
After gathering up some of these sardines, head back to the north about eight miles and out to the 200 foot ledges for some amazing grouper fishing. The scamp grouper are holding in these depths and absolutely love sardines. Deep dropping in general has been great. The gags have preferred grunts and pinfish and the amberjacks will eat just about anything you put in front of them.
Watch for the water to cool a little on the bottom and as it does the snappers will push in towards the beaches. Mangrove snappers are already plentiful and there are some muttons mixed in with them that can hardly be stopped. Here’s a tip: scale down your tackle big time!
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