Offshore: What am I doing wrong?

[Srbenda]

Been out the last two days offshore, and have been completely skunked.

I hit all the relatively close-in publicly known numbers, St. Marks, Dog Ballard, Big Bend Reef, and the OAR 2-K.
I fished frozen cut pinfish, ladyfish, and live shrimp on the bottom on knocker rigs. Also tried various colors of jerk baits and paddle tails.

At OAR 2K, we put out a chumbag, and were there for close to an hour.
I did get a lizard-fish, which promptly went back down with a hook attached- nothing.

We even trolled some stretch 25's for about a mile along crab pots, over what appeared to be some good rocky bottom on the way back from OAR.

Due to not having a spot-lock troller, we anchored and attempted to drift back over the structure, and we were not directly on top of it, but we were close.

I didn't expect to haul up grouper and red snapper at every spot, but I did expect to at least get some black sea bass and grunts. I know the colder weather has chased off lots of the other fish, but I expected to catch something...

What am I doing wrong? Tackle? Bait? Over-pressured locations?

Photos of a heavy fog yesterday morning, and the rarely seen fuel-oil barge headed to Purdom.

[StMarksAngler]

Water temps were very cold the last couple of days... low 50s. Not an expert but I'd guess that could explain a lot of your bad luck.

[Salty Gator]

Full moon fever

[big bend gyrene]

Not much of a late fall / winter fisherman but will share this TRUE story about fishing versus catching.

Number of years ago my brother came down to fish with me for 2 days. Both days we visited the same precise spot.

Day 1 we arrived to the most widespread bait balls I've ever seen. Literally appeared to be almost one HUGE solid bait ball about 600 yards in diameter. I wanted to put him on cobia, but for about two hours we couldn't get a bait down 3 feet without it being slammed by either a mackerel, bluefish, or jack. Fish were SO thick it seemed you could almost walk on them. FINALLY after about two hours of catching fish nonstop we were able to get some baits down between hits and I think we brought almost 10 cobia to the boat. The most action-intense fishing day I've had in 15+ years fishing the Big Bend area.

Day 2 found us crazily excited for a repeat. Same general weather conditions, same spot.... HARDLY A BITE THE ENTIRE DAY, and a LONG FULL DAY spent determined we'd surely run into luck at some point -- we didn't.

Not being able to go often, I pick my days carefully between weather conditions and solunar forecasts and have a fair batting average on cobia, my target of choice... BUT... always share the above story when friends ask me to put them on fish. Every once and a while you're just going to have REALLY slow days.

[FishWithChris]

We must have been out the same day, as the barge was idling out deep waiting for the tide to come in.

No luck for us offshore, either. A couple of BSB and a few knocks but that was it. Full moon and cold temps, not to mention visibility was garbage - maybe 3 - 4' from surface.

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[SHOWBOAT]

They’re out there. Drifting is tough..we caught some trolling and some holding still

[fishinfool]

Uh....nothing?

[Steve Stinson]

I am in inshore guy, but I hit some rocks that have historically produce for me the around the same time you were out and got nothing.

I can tell you that the full moon will shut down the morning tide. If I fish the day after a bright full moon, I wait until the afternoon tide.

[Srbenda]

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They’re out there. Drifting is tough..we caught some trolling and some holding still

Man, that's just mean.

I was really hoping for a Christmas grouper dinner, and instead had to settle for turkey and ham.

I guess I have one more weekend to give it a shot, but the weather doesn't look as promising this weekend for offshore in my boat.

I'll blame it on the moon and visibility.

[rickc]

fish bite when they are hungry. you can sit on a spot marking fish for hours without a bite. Then suddenly for no apparent reason every drop you get a bite.

my best luck out of st marks is take a 165 heading off the sea bouy and run to 30 to 35 feet of water. look for the stone crab bouys. put out some stretch 30's and troll watching your bottom machine. when you get a hit mark the spot and try to get on that rock. if something looks promising on the bottom machine mark it and anchor up. often the fish are concentrated on one side or the other. Anchoring is an art. pinfish are my favorite bait but they can be hard to come by this time of year. a butterflied grunt will often get your biggest fish. Just hope it isn't a jewfish.

[Srbenda]

fish bite when they are hungry. you can sit on a spot marking fish for hours without a bite. Then suddenly for no apparent reason every drop you get a bite.

my best luck out of st marks is take a 165 heading off the sea bouy and run to 30 to 35 feet of water. look for the stone crab bouys. put out some stretch 30's and troll watching your bottom machine. when you get a hit mark the spot and try to get on that rock. if something looks promising on the bottom machine mark it and anchor up. often the fish are concentrated on one side or the other. Anchoring is an art. pinfish are my favorite bait but they can be hard to come by this time of year. a butterflied grunt will often get your biggest fish. Just hope it isn't a jewfish.

We trolled alongside the crab traps out near the OAR 2K reef. I did see some fairly nice hard bottom on the machine, but got no hits on my 25's.
I'm still new to the trolling game, so I'm not sure if I had them deep enough- although I ran them way back behind the boat, probably 100+ feet back, or the grouper just didn't like the colors I was running-

Red & White
Turquoise green

[StMarksAngler]

my best luck out of st marks is take a 165 heading off the sea bouy and run to 30 to 35 feet of water.

Off the top of my head, this sounds like a few miles SE of the 24 marker?

[SHOWBOAT]

Not an expert, but I don’t think they can be run too deep. If they don’t snag bottom occasionally they’re too shallow. Also, like inshore, slow down in cold water

[Salty Gator]

fish bite when they are hungry. you can sit on a spot marking fish for hours without a bite. Then suddenly for no apparent reason every drop you get a bite.

my best luck out of st marks is take a 165 heading off the sea bouy and run to 30 to 35 feet of water. look for the stone crab bouys. put out some stretch 30's and troll watching your bottom machine. when you get a hit mark the spot and try to get on that rock. if something looks promising on the bottom machine mark it and anchor up. often the fish are concentrated on one side or the other. Anchoring is an art. pinfish are my favorite bait but they can be hard to come by this time of year. a butterflied grunt will often get your biggest fish. Just hope it isn't a jewfish.

We trolled alongside the crab traps out near the OAR 2K reef. I did see some fairly nice hard bottom on the machine, but got no hits on my 25's.
I'm still new to the trolling game, so I'm not sure if I had them deep enough- although I ran them way back behind the boat, probably 100+ feet back, or the grouper just didn't like the colors I was running-

Red & White
Turquoise green

I’m pretty sure the package says to run them with of 150’ of line for them to run at the depths they are designed to run. But line diameter plays a role. Thinner line and more line out equals deeper diving. I agree w showboat about bumping bottom. I like to see the lips a little banged up and you’ll see them skip off the bottom. If it happens too often, reel in a little line. Good luck

[rickc]

yep

i let them back until i can see from the rod action they are bumping bottom and then reel up a bit. if they don't come to the surface every now and then fouled with a piece of sponge you aren't deep.enough. braid helps to get them down but you have to have the drag set where it just keeps the line from going out.

yep southeast of 24.

if you can get some boston mackerel it makes for.a great bait this time of year

and you can load the boat with black bass out there. which i think are better eating than grouper. cleaning a cooler full is no fun though.