Gag grouper season ended this week and like many other anglers I went in search of the tasty grouper. Fishing with Billy Caldwell in 35’ of water off Boca Grande we did manage to catch our limit although we had to work at it. We started by trolling deep diving MirrOlure plugs to see if we could locate concentrations of gags. After hooking a grouper we would go back and locate the gags with the fish finder and anchor on the spot.
Before a line went to the bottom, we chummed with cut pieces of Spanish sardines and a frozen chum bag for about 10 minutes. The idea behind chumming is to concentrate the grouper under, and behind, the boat and to get them in a feeding mode.
After the chumming period, frozen Spanish sardines were dropped to the bottom and the action was on. We caught many small red and gag grouper but no keepers. To intice the big ones, live pinfish were sent down and a few big ones did bite but not in a strong rally.
After doing this at five different stops we had our limit of ten keeper gags. Also included in our catch was six keeper mangrove snapper, some big Key West grunts and to our surprise a five pound American red snapper, which was out of season and released.
I was sure the kingfish run was over after the cold fronts last week. But I was wrong.
Robbie Hehenberger was slow trolling cigar minnows at markers 1 and 2 in the Egmont Ship channel and caught six kings the biggest topping twenty pounds.
Capt. Joe Maisano caught some big kings west of John’s Pass and good kingfish are being caught on the artificial reefs off Sarasota in 50 feet.
Try the spoil islands in St. Joseph Sound for big speckled trout. Jumbo shrimp seem to work the best but white bait and slow moving jigs will also produce.