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Based on the weather man forecast, we'd planned on going offshore on Saturday, but after getting 2 miles away from the bird rack, we realized that was a poor idea. The north winds were pushing up some nice 1' to 2' seas, which was more than we were up for. We ended up on the east flats, and had plenty of action from shorts and ladyfish, and even a small shark on a Gulp. Eventually landed a 19" trout on a jerk bait.

The wind died down, so we headed offshore again, out to Dog Ballard. We dragged some cut baits on the bottom with no success at all. We had some live pinfish that also got no love.

So then we switched to trolling, dragging some plugs and cigar minnows with dusters. Finally landed a big spanish mackeral on the duster, and had an 8" black sea bass hit the deep plug. It was bigger than he was.

Sunday, the weather forecast looked great, and it lived up to it's promise.

Ran about 15 miles offshore to a public number, and it already had 4 boats on it by 800am. One of them was a 16 to 18 JON BOAT. Completely crazy and foolhardy to go out that far in that kind of boat.

Nothing biting there, so we began trolling.



We ran cigar minnows again, along with some spoons. Finally got a solid hit on the cigar minnow, and landed a nice 30" king.



Headed closer in to the OAR2k reef, and the wind died completely. Picked up a grunt and some black sea bass, but no other signs of life, but it was a beautiful day.



Headed back to state waters, and tried some deep plugs again for grouper with no success. Several times we saw what appeared to be huge bait pods underneath, but nothing seemed to be chasing them. But they showed up nicely on the sonar.

Good report thanks!

Kinda off topic but what kind of line are you using on that senator to troll with? I've recently gotten a few of them and can't decide what kind of line to put on them.

Each has about 100 yards of 100# mono, backed by 40# mono.
I'll probably resol with 60# mono to get the lures to run deeper. I think the 100# is overkill.

Srbenda wrote:Each has about 100 yards of 100# mono, backed by 40# mono.
I'll probably resol with 60# mono to get the lures to run deeper. I think the 100# is overkill.

I use 50lb power pro on my bigger trolling setups with about 10' of 50lb mono leader. I will even use one of my set ups with 30lb power pro with a 40lb leader if I want to troll deep. Braded line as we all know is much thinner than mono causing less drag through the water. This in-turn allows your plugs to run much deeper. Using a stretch 30 on the 30lb outfit you can bounce off the bottom in 50' of water but you need a reel with a very smooth drag.

We were in the same general area, had about the same results. got curious about the bait balls on the sonar and started trying to catch some (thinking the grouper were feeding on them instead of what we were offering) turned out to be squid, the would attack a gulp, be three or four at the time as soon as the net got close they would let go.

Fried calamari with marinara sauce.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/lead-ma ... lsrc=aw.ds

tailwaters wrote:

Srbenda wrote:Each has about 100 yards of 100# mono, backed by 40# mono.
I'll probably resol with 60# mono to get the lures to run deeper. I think the 100# is overkill.

I use 50lb power pro on my bigger trolling setups with about 10' of 50lb mono leader. I will even use one of my set ups with 30lb power pro with a 40lb leader if I want to troll deep. Braded line as we all know is much thinner than mono causing less drag through the water. This in-turn allows your plugs to run much deeper. Using a stretch 30 on the 30lb outfit you can bounce off the bottom in 50' of water but you need a reel with a very smooth drag.

I have Penn113H reels, so I'm not sure they qualify as smooth drag- I might try to spool them with braid and put a longer shock leader on there to prevent the potential breakoffs.

silverking wrote:Fried calamari with marinara sauce.

https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/lead-ma ... lsrc=aw.ds

Its pretty good sautéd too

Srbenda wrote:

tailwaters wrote:

Srbenda wrote:Each has about 100 yards of 100# mono, backed by 40# mono.
I'll probably resol with 60# mono to get the lures to run deeper. I think the 100# is overkill.

I use 50lb power pro on my bigger trolling setups with about 10' of 50lb mono leader. I will even use one of my set ups with 30lb power pro with a 40lb leader if I want to troll deep. Braded line as we all know is much thinner than mono causing less drag through the water. This in-turn allows your plugs to run much deeper. Using a stretch 30 on the 30lb outfit you can bounce off the bottom in 50' of water but you need a reel with a very smooth drag.

I have Penn113H reels, so I'm not sure they qualify as smooth drag- I might try to spool them with braid and put a longer shock leader on there to prevent the potential breakoffs.

If it was me I'd put 150 yards of 50lb braid on top of whatever mono you have it spooled with now. Even though it is rated for 50lb the breaking point far exceeds that. As far as a shock leader 5' to 10' of 50lb mono or fluorocarbon is plenty. The longer it is the shallower the plug will run. Having a little stretch is good but having too much give the fish more of an opportunity to get you in the rocks. BTW, nothing wrong with using a Penn 113 for trolling plugs. Used them for years rigged this way and they worked just fine. I only recommend using a setup with a really smooth drag when it is spooled with 30lb braid.

I have 2 Penn 113h. I have a 40# mono backer with 50lb power pro on top. I figured that would be sufficient for anything I run in to. I will add the leader of fluoro or mono and go with that.

I'll switch to braid.
One of you is welcome to go out on my boat and help me dial these things in.
All the beer you can drink.