BigBendFishing.Net

Headed out real early this morning to do some trolling for grouper. My first stop was at the Rotary and I ended up getting my arse scared off due to the high seas. I "caught" some structure with the stretch and while trying to work it out, I took a pretty good wave over the back . Thinking about those football players last year who were in a similar situation, I grabbed my knife and cut the line (AMS has all the strech lures I need......). I then gently headed north and took it in to some calmer waters. Next stop was near the St. Marks reefs and picked up a short grouper on a firetiger. After messing around in that general area for a couple of hours, the weather seemed to be calming down and I headed back out again. I worked my way out to the Marker 24 Barge and some live bottom in that area, however, I had no success out there. I even tried bottom fishing on the barge a while and didn't even get a nibble. By this time, the seas were really calm and I headed back towards the Rotary again. Ironically, this time, I "caught" some structure again, but this time I was able to pull it up and it turned out to be a piece of sponge that weighed around 20 pounds. Having been on the water over 8 hours, I decided to lick my wounds and head back to the hill. No fish in the box, but darn glad to have had an overall safe trip.

One observation I made was that there did not seem to be nearly as many ducks out in front of Piney as there was this time last week. I don't know if this cold front pushed them on or not, but that messes up my plans for later this week.

Question: What speed do you fellas prefer to troll for grouper?

Thanks,

I try different speeds till I find a speed they like anywhere between 3 to 6 mph on the GPS. The strength of the current will also dictate my speed, both going with it and against it. I do find that I go slower against it and faster with it in order to get the action I want from the lure and if I have a large enough area to troll over several times, I will adjust my speed up or down with each pass I wanted ta be out there today, but was waitin on Chill-N-Grills wifey ta get back to me on some tires for my wifes SUV shure hope it cooperates with me tomorrow

It seemed like they liked 4.5 to 5.0 kmh on Sunday. Not so much at slower speeds.

Thanks wevans and harmsway. That's good intel. I trolled around 8mph last week and ended up ripping the lips off a couple (actually just got the hits and they were lost). However, I did catch some going around 8 as well. I tried 3.5 to 5 yesterday. It seemed like the 5 mph worked best. Hopefully I will get a chancre to practice some more soon.

A couple of buddys and I did the high seas thing Monday for a couple of hours before growing a brain and heading to the hill. I trolled at 4.5-6 and caught 2 short gags a little south of marker 24.