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So it seems like everyone I talk with about grouper fishing has a different take on what good baits are. I don't think there is any debate that squirrel fish and pinfish are great baits, but what about pigfish and spot tails. My father in law said when they used to grouper fish, that would catch shiners( pinfish) and throw the croakers( pigfish) back. Some of my grouper buddies like pigfish better than pinfish. I fished with another experienced grouper fisherman on Sunday and we caught squirrels, pins, pigs and some spots. He said he's never had luck w spot tails and didn't think they would work. We got to our first spot and started I get hammered pretty quickly and ran through all of our bait except 8-10 spots. The bite was definitely starting to slow down before we ran out of pins/pigs, but we were still catching fish. My buddy dropped the first spot and got freight trained by the biggest fish we had on all day. He had no control over the beast and it eventually spit the hook . We got a few more bites on the spots, but couldn't manage to get another in the boat until we started trolling. So, my question to the experienced offshore fishermen, is what do y'all think about spot tails for grouper bait? What about pigfish? Thanks for any replies

What are squirrel and spot fish?


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I pretty much shallow water grouper fish and spot tails are a bait of last resort. Just my experience.

Pig fish are AWESOME bait!! I've caught Cobia, Grouper, Snapper, big trout, tarpon and reds on them.

Spot tails are also called tom tates They are all over the reefs and as woopty said- I only use them when i run out of good bait.
We have put both pins and spots down at the same time and there is no doubt the spots are poor bait.
I dont know if they are too common, taste bad or what but we get way less bites on them.


Squirell fish are great bait!

Pinfish are my first choice, pigfish are my second choice, squirrelfish (sand perch) are my third choice, lizardfish are my fourth choice, all white bait species (greenies, chards, etc) are my fifth choice, and then spottails are my last resort bait. I'm not sure why they don't work, but they just don't....and btw bman, tomtates and spottails are a different species. That pic you posted above is a tomtate, but this is a pic of the garbage bait we call a spottail in our area.

Thanks for the replies gentlemen. Out of all of the baitfish listed,the only one that is eaten with regularity by people (sailors choice) are the spot tails( like the one Jhults posted). I wonder why the grouper don't like them as much. They seem like they would be easier to eat than a spiny pinfish.

Spots are great eating if large enough. I like the ones about hand size or bigger. We use baby spots for trout and do fairly well with them.

I target grouper less than cobia, but for both pinfish is my bait of choice. If the pins are really big I'll sometime trim the fins to make the profile more slender / prevent them from making quite as big of defensive appearance flexing their fins. Have caught fish on all baits listed, including spots (per Jhult's definition/ not Bman's - have heard them called spot tail pinfish, spot tail porgies, and sailor's choice). As for tomtates, when pins were tough to find inshore the past year we used tomtates caught offshore with plenty of luck with the cobia.

this posts is great! i've wondered the same thing, why don't these "spot tails" work good? to me they look and act just like pinfish, but i rarely have had success on them. now days when we are baitfishing for any offshore species i dont't even bother putting them in the livewell.

I agree pin fish and pig fish are the better baits for grouper.another great bait is a sizable plug of lady fish or lizardfish are also great Grouper baits. Spot tails make good chum---for sail cats!!

In my experience, pinfish have a louder and more frequent croak when distressed. But then maybe I've only encountered really chill spot tails. Just a thought.