We headed from the Carrabelle River to East Pass, and then miles beyond the pass, we looked for bait schools. We thought we found large schools of cigar minnows, but we were not catching them in high numbers. We changed plans for live bait and headed further out to a spot where we always catch sandperch, pinfish, and pigfish on our DIY double-hook bait rigs baited with squid. Strangely, we were catching lots of cigar minnows with both baited rigs and unbaited Sabiki rigs. Although we caught a few sandperch, we didn't catch any pinfish or pigfish.
With a livewell full of bait, we headed south. Just past S Tower, we experimented with trolling lures in hopes of catching blackfin tuna. After a mile or so of trolling, we ran out of patience with trolling, reeled in our lines, and headed to our red grouper spots.
At the first spot, we didn't have to wait for bites. However, the fish we were catching were dinks--until we were just about to move. Soon as we decided to move, my friend's son caught a tank of a red grouper. This kept us fishing at the spot a little longer. Then, the pattern repeated. We had to catch about ten dinks for every keeper, and every keeper was much longer than the 20" minimum length.
After the bite slowed, we fished two or three more spots in the general area. We kept catching and releasing dinks until we had our limit of keepers. This pattern went against my usual thinking that big fish and small fish don't occupy the same spots. I guess big grouper and small grouper hangout together at least sometimes.
Here are a few underwater pictures from the GoPro:
To see my underwater video visit my instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DWR9PAHlH8 ... RkY3o1Mw==
On this trip, the bigger fish seemed to prefer live bait. However, we caught keepers on frozen squid and LYs. The offshore water temperature was about 65 degrees. Bait schools down deep seemed to be about everywhere in water deeper than 70'.
Putting fuel in the boat at Pirates Cove was a little more painful than after the last outing. Instead of the usual $4.69 per gallon of 89 octane, the price was $5.69 per gallon.
Here's the trophy fish pile:
