Outdoors Column | It’s red snapper season in the Gulf. Someone, please, tell the fish
With American red snapper recreational season upon us anglers have been getting offshore to get their 2-per person for the dinner table. But poor weather has kept many onshore while slow bites have met those offshore.
On opening day I joined Jay Travis, Tony Summers and Justin Hey, pushing west into the Gulf of Mexico at more than 40 mph as the sun rose to our backs. The first stop was a small wreck in 165 feet around 7:30 a.m. The fish finder lit up below as we dropped baits to its structure.
But nothing happened.
No bites with baits rising from the depths unharmed, so we pushed on.
The next stop was in 180 feet on hard bottom. It colored the Raymarine with schools of fish near the bottom. And once again, none decided to eat our offerings.
I dropped a GoPro to the bottom and checked the footage, revealing our intended target, red snapper. They mixed in with schools of vermillion snapper but lockjaw was in effect.
After exploring another spot with similar poor results Travis pointed his 32-foot Contender even further west to around 200 feet.
He dropped a chunk of squid to the bottom and finally a drag was screaming. The tug of war with constant pulling below from a fish that didn’t stop had our hopes high. We all looked down and finally saw it through the beautiful blue water, a big and healthy red snapper more than 20 pounds!
We prepped another drift to hopefully produce similar results. On the next drop Summers’ rod was pulled to the waters edge. His 5-minute battle resulted in a large red grouper.
But seemingly as soon as those fish ate they turned back off and we went even deeper. The next spot, one with bigger piles of rocks, started with a slow bite. The GoPro drop showed red snapper, with many big ones, below. We decided to anchor and hoped to get the bite going by getting a frenzy going on the bottom.
We started fishing with dead bait, sardines and squid, to get some scent in the water on the bottom. A few bites ensued, and some quality 15-pound plus red snapper were landed. When the bite slowed, I scaled down the tackle to 1/2-ounce Hogball jig and small piece of squid on 30-pound Shinsei Fluorocarbon leader. I knew it would take a while to reach bottom, but the payoff was worth it.
The light tackle worked and provided a fun fight from the deep. With this tactic we would eventually finish off our 4-person, 8-red snapper limit with fish all above 15 pounds. A few red grouper showed up as by catch that were added to the icy fish box.
For the rest of the day we bounced around in search of other species with the highlight being breaking off a handful of large black grouper that outclassed our heavy conventional tackle. I was able to land a big gag grouper during the fracas of black grouper that came up without issue.
We were met with a storm that evening that worked west into the Gulf of Mexico. Luckily, the worst was just to our south as we returned through the Manatee River. Anglers on Saturday were met with extremely poor weather as storms spun up in the early morning of the Gulf of Mexico. Many turned around for safety. A large number of EPIRB devices were deployed for boats in distress.
The weather has been extremely inconsistent and the bite was been as well. While anglers can’t control the weather we can control the effort and tackle used. If you find yourself offshore and the bite has slowed, drop down what you’re using to get fish feeding. It could make the different between no bites and a box full of fish!