Angler finds success fishing where snook and gag grouper are readily available

Most anglers probably associate gag grouper with offshore trips on bigger boats deep into the Gulf of Mexico.

On the opposite spectrum, snook are thought of as primarily residing on flats and caught fishing in shallow water.

To target one or the other can be the choice anglers have to make, unless you fish where they meet. Brendan Baldwin often catches both, without a boat, from land, in the same spot.

Early Thursday morning Baldwin and friend Franky Lozoya brought home two snook and four gag grouper after a few hours of night fishing, and it’s turning into a regular occurrence.

Baldwin, an offshore commercial angler who resides in Tampa, makes trips up and down the west coast of Florida to fish land based structures.

“I fish anywhere from three to five nights a week and also inshore fish during the day when not working,” Baldwin said.

“I strictly fish on land during the nights from multiple bridges all the way from Tampa down to Venice. When looking for bridges, passes and jetties I look for deep water (15 to 30 feet) structure that must hold bait. I look for the strongest tidal flow from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. and we often fish late into the night, even into sun up the next morning.”

For bait Baldwin brings two-ounce flairhawk jigs made by ProFishinal Fishing Co. and 12-inch soft plastics with a two-ounce jighead. If the fishing is tough on artificial, he’ll sabiki up live bait such as hand sized pinfish and grunts that he says are irresistible to big snook and gag grouper.

“On most bridges from Bradenton to Sarasota you will find snook and gags on the same spot. Further north it’s mainly snook and tarpon with an occasional cobia and goliath grouper.”

Wednesday night Baldwin found himself fishing after the first cold front of the season.

“I knew from experience that the gags would chew good after the front, so we planned on heading out catching bait and hitting a few bridges down south. It produced four nice gags from 25 to 27 inches and three slot snook from 28 to 33 inches.”

To stand a chance against both hard fighters that like to find structure, Baldwin uses heavier spinning tackle like his preferred Shimano Saragossa on a Teremar 7-foot rod with 50-pound braid. With live bait he prefers a 6-ounce fish finder rig with 80-pound leader. This setup produces anywhere from five to seven snook with the occasional gag on most nights, with good nights catching up to a dozen snook between 28 and 40 inches.

Moving forward, Baldwin looks forward to the gag fishing getting even better as the water cools, but the snook will slowly leave their structured homes.

“With the water temperature and air temperature dropping, the gags get thicker and thicker near the bridges. The snook become tough as they move back into the back water creeks and canals to get sun during the day, but a handful will stay at the bridges.”

This story was originally published October 28, 2017 at 8:02 PM with the headline "Angler finds success fishing where snook and gag grouper are readily available."