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© St. Petersburg Times, published September 17, 2002
Last week, just before Tropical Storm Hanna, a trip offshore for amberjacks using live blue runners, large pinfish and threadfins for bait on offshore springs and shipwrecks proved successful. The jacks were big, running from 35 to 90 pounds, in 110 to 151 feet of water.
You'll need 50- to 60-pound class tackle, a fighting belt and lots of strength to land these big bruisers. Anchor your boat 50 feet from the wreck; this will increase your chances of boating the fish. If you anchor your boat directly over the wreck, chances are the jacks will take your line into the super structure of the wreck and cut it.
You also can drift over the springs. Mark your target, then make a series of drifts by the jug to catch the jacks. Another benefit of fishing over springs and shipwrecks is once you have had your fun with the amberjacks, you can catch mangrove snappers, grouper and blackfin tuna.
Always deploy a flat line with a live bait, and drop a frozen block of chum off the transom to see if there are blackfin tuna in the area. More often than not we are rewarded with some tuna action in the same place we were jack fishing.
-- Larry "Huffy" Hoffman charters out of John's Pass, Treasure Island. Call (727) 709-9396.