Outdoors

Captain's Corner

By STEVE PAPEN
Published August 22, 2007

What's hot: Bottom fishing offshore this time of year takes planning. As water temperatures rise, grouper get into a slower feed. Grouper and snapper are most active early in the morning until early afternoon; the bite slows until late afternoon, when they feed heavily until dark. This time of year, live bait is imperative.

Tactics: Finding these fish is harder this time of the year, as they tend to spread out on hard bottom in search of food. When not holding on structure these fish follow bait schools around. Sometimes this happens over a vast area of sand where you would think there are no grouper. Surprisingly, there have been scattered areas in shallower water that have had great catches of red and gag grouper. Their appearance, unusual this time of year, has been due to all of the bait schools at 60-90 feet deep. Last week we never fished outside of 105 feet and had a great day for mangrove and red snapper, gag and red grouper to 18 pounds and one blackfin tuna.

Steve Papen charters out of Indian Shores and can be reached at (727) 642-3411 or at fintasticinc.com.

[Last modified August 21, 2007, 23:27:03]