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

On the calm days before this latest series of fronts bottom fishing was exceptional. We returned to port each day with a mixture of red grouper, mangrove snapper, white grunts, trigger fish (which will be closing in Federal waters at 12:01 am local time, February 7, 2015) scamp and Lane snapper. Several gag grouper were caught and released. The scamp and Lane snapper were caught on the days when we ventured into the 90 foot depths of water. Traditional summertime red grouper tactics were employed by starting out with frozen squid and sardines and switching to live bait such as pinfish and freshly butterflied squirrelfish. Targeting the smaller reef fish by some of the anglers onboard with 2 hook snapper rigs at the start will quickly lure in the larger fish. Water temperatures have only dipped below 60 degrees for a few days which causes the metabolism of the reef fish to slow down and requires soaking frozen baits for some time to start the activity.
On our last trip offshore, we stopped 3 miles offshore on a patch of hard bottom to sabiki baits and were surprised to find a mixture of pinfish, squirellfish, silver trout, small Spanish mackerel, hardtails and threadfins. Normally on this spot at this time of year only pinfish and squirellfish are caught. The appearance of the pelagic bait may signify that we can expect an early start to our trolling season for mackerel and kingfish. Even though we will still have cold fronts passing through, the longer days will keep the water warm and increase water temps to the magical 72 degrees.