By Capt. Bart Marx
The offshore fishing is in full swing! Red snapper is on the menu until the middle of the month, unless you have the NOAA reef permits, then the season ends at the end of July. Gag grouper is open too, until January, this is one of my favorites. I am going to try to harvest them by trolling with a downrigger, I think it will be fun. The natural migration for gags is they move out to deeper waters when the Gulf warms up and they migrate inshore in the winter when the waters cool down. There are plenty of ledges past the one-hundred-foot range to troll. Red grouper will attack a lure also, but they are not as aggressive as gags. On red snapper the limit is two per angler, not including captain and mate. It would be nice to harvest gags and reds too, to finish out a day-trip offshore. There are also yellowtail snapper and mangroves that are excellent table fare. If all is good and the fish are hungry, you could end up with a few different species for your bag limit. If fishing around some of the artificial reefs, you may run into schools of permit and even a cobia or two. Maybe even a reef donkey/amber jack; these guys put up one heck of a battle, they just don’t give up. If there are some schools of bait around, the king mackerel could be in the neighborhood too; they don’t call them smokers for nothing. Those that have caught them you know what I mean. In the past I have found them hanging around an artificial reef and anchor up with some good-size threadfin hearing for bait and that is some fun.
With the snook, reds, and trout closed till next year it is all catch and release. With that said, snook will be all along the beaches to spawn. I have been diving in 45’ of water off the beaches and saw schools of fifty fish or more. It is crazy when you are trying to target mangrove snapper on a close to shore reef and you catch snook. Yes, it can happen. Talking about mangroves, this is the time of year to try some night fishing for them. Go out to your mangrove snapper spots before the sun sets. This way you can get your boat and chum started and lights if you have them, set up too. Yes, it is much cooler in the evening and you can catch several different species at night.