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My friend has been asking about sea bass lately... I don't really catch many but I'd like to try. Anyone willing to share a number for some rocks holding sea bass in the St. Marks area? I've tried the reef public numbers but usually just catch undersized grouper. I've also tried Peters Rock with limited success. I'll try and share whatever knowledge I can in return for some help.
Thanks

I have caught a lot of small ones around the rock garden but never any keepers. I may be wrong but I would imagine you would need to find structure in a little deeper water to find the larger ones.

I am not sure where you normally launch. Any of the rock piles between St. Marks River and Aucilla River that are in about 8' of water or more will hold some keepers. Also, any of the rock piles off of Lanark / Carabelle.

Normally, they are very aggressive. Andrew and I have been catching two at a time on the same bait or sometimes, one hooked on the bait and another one grabbing on to the sinker above the bait long enough to swing them both into the boat.

There are a lot of smaller Sea Bass closer to shore, but normally they don't get big enough to keep until you reach 8 - 9 feet of water. They hit almost anything hooked to a jig head.

I've recently caught keepers in the channel even before you get to the light house. Try the channel at the end of any of the oyster bars that come close to the channel. Throw some shrimp to the bottom and boom! You will catch a lot of shorts, but there are some 12's mixed in there. If you want the bigger ones you gotta go a little farther out in my experience.

We've been catching some pretty nice ones on rockpiles southeast of the lighthouse in 8-12 feet of water.

If you want to head offshore a little ways, here's an idea: Head southeast out of the lighthouse toward the Marker 24 reef and OAR 2K. Once you get to about 30 feet of water, start looking for the massive minefield of stone crab and rock bass traps. There were hundreds of them out there a couple weeks ago, and most of them are sitting right on top of prime Rock Bass hardbottom.

Might as well catch a few for yourself before we sell them all to the yankees...

Thanks everyone. I'll try and focus on a little bit deeper water and locate some rocks.

Jimmy, aka Milto, aka Sugarfoot, aka crack corn.... I'm well aware of the river spot you speak of, but it produces a ton of shorts, how'd you find that spot? HAHA

Some one posted it a while back and was a long time secret of an old man who fished the spot for years in a Jon Boat.