The weather forecast for Saturday sounds perfect for an all-night mangrove snapper fishing trip.
Go to your favorite spot and anchor. Use 2-3 ounces of lead tied off to 40-pound fluorocarbon and a 2/0 hook. We carry six to eight blocks of chum to bring the mangos up into the floodlights, making the catch a visual - as well as tasty - memory.
The amberjack bite is good in 120-150 feet off the wrecks and springs to the southwest. You can use netfuls of white bait to bring them to the surface and cast popping plugs at them for sport. If you need meat for the smoker, a 4/0 reel with 60-pound mono and an 8/0 live bait hook are the way to go. Also, bleeding an amberjack improves its taste tremendously.
The red grouper bite is steady in 90-150 feet of water. Use a mixture of live and dead bait. The easiest way to fish for reds this time of year is to find trash piles of bait on the bottom and motor-fish them. Do not expect to catch a large number per pile, but expect to find several piles in an area.
Sharks and barracuda seem to be on every stop that we make lately. The barracudas can be great fun on light tackle and easily taken using chartreuse Cuda Tubes. Sharks respond well to cut chunks of bonita fished straight down. They have been striking all over the water column, so don't get hung up having your bait on the bottom.
There are plenty of shrimp boats to the southwest, but the blackfin seem to have left for deeper and more temperate water.
- Mike Whitman charters the Mega Bite out of Gulfport. Call 727 384-5729 or by e-mail at capt@megabitecharters.com
