Florida angler and crew fill up freezer with grouper, snapper as end of season nears
Since he could stand up as a child, Jacob Brown has been offshore fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. But this year his time offshore has been limited.
“I like to go deep. Since September I’ve been trying and I think there was only one time in six weeks I was able to go because of the weather,” Brown said. “This year has been one of the worst that I can remember with it rough so often.”
Being landlocked for so long left Brown ready to fill the freezer with closed seasons approaching. Even with a less than desirable forecast, he was ready to head deep before last weekend in search of a 20-fish bag limit of grouper and snapper.
“I run a 3065 Glacier Bay catamaran and it can handle almost any conditions. It can take 5 foot seas head on and I wouldn’t want to be in any other boat.”
On Dec. 12, Brown and his crew left at midnight with a destination more than 120 miles offshore west of the famed Middlegrounds. Buoy seas were reporting at 5 feet and caused Brown’s buddy boat to turn around instead of joining them on the trip. He pushed on and when the sun rose they were dropping baits into 320 feet of water. Seas had started to calm down and fish were hungry, but unfortunately they weren’t the right fish.
“We were hoping to get some big gags at the first spot,” Brown said. “I think it’s an old wooden wreck that’s been spread out. The problem we had though was the big American red snapper between 25 and 30 pounds and amberjack over 100 pounds were eating our baits,” and both species are out of season.
“We didn’t stick around there longer than 30 minutes and headed shallower.”
One thing Brown does is always look for new spots. On the way to their next destination he spent 45 minutes trolling high speed wahoo lures while watching intently at his Simrad bottom machine.
“I always leave and troll in a different direction, looking for new stuff. In the past six months I’ve marked over 500 new spots.”
Back in shallower waters, the boat of six anglers found the gag grouper, mangrove snapper and big vermillion snapper. Brown drifted along the 40-break, a long string of good bottom that runs parallel with the Florida coast in around 240 feet of water.
“We mainly look for fish shows and drift,” Brown said. “If we get a spot where everyone gets a gag grouper or big mangrove snapper we’ll turn around and anchor on that spot. ... The fish are so plentiful out there we’re not fishing for any one thing in particular. You’re going to catch something no matter what.”
By the end of their deep run Brown’s boat had 118 total fish on ice, only two short of their aggregate reef fish limit. This comprised of 12 gag grouper, nine red grouper and three scamp grouper to go with a boatload of mangrove snapper and big vermillion snapper.
In the week ahead Brown is hoping to get offshore deep at least one more time for gag grouper. The season will close when the calendar turns.
“I’ve got my eye on the end of the week,” Brown said. “It looks like we might get some decent weather.”