Bradenton fishermen use weather to their advantage for an impressive hogfish catch

With cold fronts rolling through biweekly, fishing opportunities offshore have been at the mercy of the weather. A little break this past week gave anglers the opportunity to get offshore, and with it, the fishing has been great.

When it’s calm, the best chance to catch fish is usually right ahead of cold fronts when they are most active as pressures change. If the weather is right and the timing works out, it can lead to phenomenal fishing.

On a recent trip ahead of a cold front, I had a feeling at some point during the day it was going to be just right. There was a strong front sweeping across the Gulf and its timing was set to be in the evening for the west coast of Florida. It had the feeling of a good bite toward the sunset, so we left a bit later to maximize this window. By the end, it paid off.

The first few stops in 60 feet were good, but not great. A few hogfish came off the bottom before the bite slowed to mainly grunts, some triggerfish and porgies. We kept bouncing around new spots and I inspected them with a camera. I saw plenty of hogfish, mangrove snapper and gag grouper, but the bite was not happening. A little deeper to 90 feet had big shows of fish, but patrolling sharks minimized our bites.

The day wore on and we picked a few fish per spot. Back in 70 feet, a ledge produced a few large mangrove snapper that were very picky. I went down to 15-pound leader on a small Yellowtail Aki jig, hiding the hook completely in the bait. It worked for a half dozen nice-sized mangroves before being broken off by a gag grouper.

I said let’s make one more stop, back in shallower around 50 feet. On the satellite weather overlay and on the horizon we could see a small line of showers headed our way. I’ve been in this situation before and it has led to some amazing bites.

We pulled up to some Swiss cheese hard bottom and started firing down Hogballs with half shrimp. I caught a keeper-sized red grouper and then the hogfish started flying around the boat. As soon as a bait hit the bottom, a hogfish was coming up for all of us! At one point, all four anglers on board were fighting over the dehooker to get back to the bottom as soon as possible.

For an hour straight as the front inched closer and the sun set lower, we had an insane hogfish bite. It put us just shy of our 5-per-person limit as we released the smaller females to live another day and kept the fish that were no doubt legal size.

With a full box, we headed home to beat the impending rain and wind.

Weather will continue to be the talk of the season as cold weather sets in once again behind another strong cold front. Taking the opportunity to get out between fronts on warmer and calmer days has led to great catches like ours even with limited opportunities.