SUMMER IS HERE AGAIN June is one of those months you can catch anything, and almost everywhere you want to fish for them. For example… the Gags are everywhere, and I do literally mean everywhere!!! From all that good hard bottom 8 to 10 miles off the beach, to the break and beyond. The Wahoo can be inshore or still along the edge of the break, so keep a light line out everywhere you go. The African Pompano are all over that pretty bottom down south near the tower, and the Cobia are potentially on every piece of bottom you fish. We catch more Cobia on the bottom while Grouper fishing than on top with the light line bait. If you want to catch a King, just put a frozen cigar on the light line while you Grouper fish. There’s no need to troll to catch a King, they readily eat a frozen cigar minnow not to mention a LIVE cigar, or sardine. I’ve said it before, but I will say it again… the Sabiki can be the most valuable player of all tackle on the boat. If you put a live cigar minnow or sardine on the crab decoy jig, its life expectancy is under 10 seconds on the bottom, nothing can deny that. Sure, I’m looking for fish and good bottom on the recorder, but I’m also looking for bait before I post up to bottom fish. When you find the bait you find the fish. I will spend part of my day jigging bait to put back down because remember, whatever is there is what they eat.
Speaking of bait, we always try to take live pinfish from the marina along with a couple boxes of frozen cigar minnows. The live pinfish sometimes makes the day and don’t hesitate to take the smaller ones. Sometimes I’ll put two small pinfish on a decoy jig, one on the main hook, and one on the stinger hooked through the lips. This tackle can be more than they can take even when they’re picky. For example, the picture of this Hog Snapper was just that case, it ate the crab decoy jig with two small pinfish. But you can’t keep the American Red Snappers off this combo either. I think the Red Snappers are so thick, you could catch them on a snickers bar. At some point, our national fisheries managers are going to have to give us some relief on the Gag grouper and American Red Snapper. Don’t take my word for it, ask any diver you know and they’ll tell you. I’ve been bumping around out there for over 40 years now, and there has never been more American Red Snappers than now, and the Gags are everywhere in big numbers. We could settle this once and for all with large area (underwater) video surveys just like they did in the Gulf Coast to verify the vast numbers of American Red Snappers there. However, they don’t want to do that because it would prove they’ve been wrong all along. I’m not sure exactly what their end goal is for shutting down our fisheries, but all you have to do is follow the money, I think this starts to paint a pretty accurate picture. I’ll close this June article by saying I don’t think we’re too far away from removing some of these (woke agenda) bureaucrats and installing common sense fisheries managers that that will work WITH the people and FOR the people.
Take the kids out there, drop some baits to the bottom and catch some good dinner(s). Enjoy your June. Summertime is here.
All the best fishing,
TIM BAREFOOT
barefootcatsandtackle.com