12/7 The window of opportunity-Shallow Grouper

[captkeyser]

Went out Sunday to see if we could slide into some calm seas. The seas were 2 to 3ft far less than the forecasted 3 to 5's. We made our long trek out to 15ft of water and dropped the trolling plugs. Water was a tad bit stand from this past week's rain, but it didn't seem to affect the bite. The first fish that came to the boat was a solid 31" Gag. Yes, 15ft of water! The second fish was 29", the third 30" and they got smaller as the day went on. We had a couple of double hook ups and lost probably 3 to 4 good fish to poor hook ups.

We took a break from trolling to do a little light tackle jigging. The grouper were no match to the Stradic 2500 spooled with 10lb power pro on a medium light St. Croix. Didn't put any keeper fish in the boat, but it was a blast landing 20" fish on such fragile tackle. We caught 10 or so doing this, and went back to trolling.

Loaded some more 26-28" fish in the boat and headed in with slick seas.

Tally:
Roughly 25 gags
9 Keepers
8 of which all were over 26"s.

It was a heck of a day, and we never got deeper than 18' of water. If you haven't tried this, then I strongly recommend that you do. There is a TON of inshore structure just South of the Aucilla mouth, mark it and troll it. NO need to burn all that gas. Sorry I don't have any pics, my camera is shot.

[Tom Keels]

It doesn't get much better than that. People that have never done shallow water grouper fishing have no idea.

[captkeyser]

Yep, it's somthing else. The outgoing tide has been the target time.

[wevans]

SWEETTTTT

[CATCH 22]

Good job What colors were the hottest?

[Flint River Pirate]

Nice job!!

[captkeyser]

"Firetiger" picked up most of the fish, but some were also caught on "Blue and White."

[Natureboy]

So easy a caveman could do it!

[Carlabear]

Thanks for the report!

[Dabbler]

Ditto

[qoutrage]

Good fishing. And, thanks for the shallow water info.

[dolphinatic]

We took a break from trolling to do a little light tackle jigging. The grouper were no match to the Stradic 2500 spooled with 10lb power pro on a medium light St. Croix. Didn't put any keeper fish in the boat, but it was a blast landing 20" fish on such fragile tackle. We caught 10 or so doing this, and went back to trolling.



If you haven't tried this, then I strongly recommend that you do. There is a TON of inshore structure just South of the Aucilla mouth, mark it and troll it. NO need to burn all that gas. Sorry I don't have any pics, my camera is shot.

We did this yesterday and had a blast!!!!!!! However, my medium tackle rig was no match for a few of the freight trains that hit