Captain’s Corner for Jan 29 Dave Zalewski 397-8815

Gag grouper have been a catch, photo, release fish since November and red grouper will join them on February 1 when the closure for them will also go into effect. Until April 1. There are still plenty of fish available to provide a few delicious meals and some for the freezer. White grunts AKA Key West grunts, gray snapper, saltwater crappie and a host of other local names are our predominate reef fish and when tackle is downsized provide drag pulling action just like the larger reef fish that we so often target. In addition to the grunts mangrove snapper, triggerfish, silver trout, and sea bass are all open in the gulf waters
Tip: Bring some light spinning or bait casting tackle to a rocky area that is normally targeted for grouper, rig with a 2 hook “chicken rig”2/0 hooks, 3 to 4 ounce sinker and let the action begin. The activity of the smaller reef fish feeding will bring in the larger grouper, who will join in the fray and will test angling skills on the light tackle.
We have been pleasantly surprised by the number of kingfish and large mackerel that have shown up while bottom fishing in the 50 to 60 foot depths recently and have went back to deploying frozen sardine on a stinger rigged flatline.
Tip: Keep the flatline rigged and ready when traveling offshore, we have been encountering small pods of kingfish smashing into schools of bait and have had great success casting a frozen sardine and using a “walk the dog” method of retrieval to trigger a strike.