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Fished St. Marks this weekend. Trolled the stretches in 20' to 60' Caught mostly short grouper and some bigger fish deeper east of the K tower. Just learning and hunting for numbers.

My question is do you let it bump bottom or pull it up a little where it stays off the bottom. I really sandpapered the lip on one. I hung up quite a few times but could always break it loose. You can really tell when it is running across good bottom because the rod bounces. I got where I could watch the bottom machine and tell when the rod would start bouncing or I would get a bite.

I am using the 12 lb dia. 65 lb test power pro. With this line the stretch 30 will get on the bottom in 55' i know. I hung it up several times and even caught 2 lizzard fish about 24" long.

Caught a few kings on a duster and cigar minnow combo while trolling the stretches.

Any advice would be apreciated as I am just learning.

How about that weather. Quite a turnaround from April.

You shouldn't troll a stretch 30 with power pro unless your in at least 40 foot of water....Drop down to smaller stretches if your running them with power pro...You could probably slow the troll, but that would be counter productive as far as covering area....

How fast were you trolling? Tom or someone can give you the ideal trolling speeds, I can't recall at the moment....

You can troll with pp but if you are hitting bottom you need to either slow your troll or shorten the amount of line out.

I would shorten the amount of line I had out. Remember you are catching fish that are hugging the bottom. The only reason you have to have line out the back at all is to allow the baits to get down because of the drag on the line. Less drag means less line you have to have out.

A good rule of thumb for a stretch 30 when trolling mono is 3-4 feet of line out for every foot in depth. 30 feet deep = 90-120 feet of line out. This of course varies with speed, and line size and can go up or down.. Not sure what it is for PP.

Good grouper trolling speed = 3.5 - 4 mph.

Thanks

Yes I troll between 3.5 and 4 mph not knots

I first started with 150' of line in 30' of water and found that I could shorten up the line until the line was almost at the transom and still bump bottom.

So what I will do is let out line until its bumping bottom and then reel up about 5 turns.

The bigger grouper seam to be moving offshore. As I am trolling I am looking for that good bottom. Next month we will be diving those spots whre we will know whats down there. 70 degree water is a little cool for me. Heard some people on the radio that were spearing some fish this weekend. You weren't on that boat were you Tom.

RC wrote: Heard some people on the radio that were spearing some fish this weekend. You weren't on that boat were you Tom.

Unfortunately no. I'm not sure when I'll get to dive again. Unless someone with a big boat would like to sponsor a Team for the spearboard open next weekend.

Tom
All I have is a 21' sea pro bay that you and some of the other regulars recomended. By the way I love the boat.

I will be diving out of it this summer especially if we get more weather like this weekend.

I was alone this weekend and probably will be fishing alone quite a bit, so sometime if you want to go in a little boat, we'll have to get together. I sure could use some local knowledge.