Captain’s Corner for 12-29-12 Dave Zalewski

Santa Claus came early last week and left some great gifts offshore. The South County artificial reef, nearby “Betty Rose” wreck, and the ledges and hard bottom areas produced banner catches of Spanish mackerel, kingfish, catch, photo, and release gag grouper along with enough keeper red grouper and white grunts for fresh fish dinners with some left over for the freezer. The ledges in this area have been providing some exciting trolling for gag grouper in the 30 inch range. We have tried many combinations trolling for gags, but have settled on two combinations. A #3 planer on a 50# class outfit using a 30 foot length of 60# leader with either a gold broken backed hard bodied lure or a large jig head with either a shad or curly tailed soft plastic tail have produced consistent catches. Drags must be set at the point where there is just enough pressure to prevent slippage when trolling at 5 to 5 ½ knots because if set tighter the brute force of the strike will result in snapped lines.
It was not rocket science to realize that not all of our kingfish had left our area for warmer water and switch one of our rigs to a #2 planer, large spoon combination after we caught several kingfish on the grouper tackle. Mixed in with the kings were large Spanish mackerel. This last cold front may have forced the migratory fish out of our area , but it will not hurt to spend some time trolling to see if there are any of these pelagic fish left in our area.