I've never been to the area, never caught a legal Grouper (except on a charter boat) and never trolled for Grouper before, so I was expecting this to be a learning experience and didn't have high hopes for catching much.
We went to St Marks and stayed at Shell Island Fish Camp. We went out Friday and tried various things, couldn't catch any pinfish, went to the last buoy and loaded up on sand perch, then tried soaking bait at the St Marks reef and didnt catch anything.
Trolled some from there with no luck and stopped at one good looking rocky area, but nothing again. The seas were only about 1' so I loaded up and went to marker 24, fished bait there and didn't catch anything.
Then we started trolling SE and at least picked up a few small Black Sea Bass. After about 4 or 5 miles we ran over a bait school and sabiki'd some cigar minnows and herring, and finally caught an 18" Grouper on a jig under the school.
Started trolling again and about a half mile away everything busted loose. We were hooking a Grouper about every 10 or 15 minutes for the next hour and a half, with a King thrown in the middle,. We ended up with 13, 11, 8, 7 & 7 pounders and 5 or 6 shorts, all were only an inch or two short.
Then we had to head in, I didn't want to get caught in the dark, being unfamiliar with the area. The next day we went to the same area and caught one 9 pounder and three shorts all within a fraction of an inch. It was sower, but we couldn't stay until the afternoon when they bit the day before, my step daughter and her husband were coming down from Tallahassee to visit, so we had to head in.
All in all, we did way better than I expected to on our first trip, and really enjoyed the area also. Hopefully we will get back down there in the spring.
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I think you did pretty darn well........come back sooooon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
