FISHING SEASON 2K13!!!!!!

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thats a beautiful boat JD... jealous of those grouper. I got absolutely slammed and about broke my trevala thursday grouper fishin on the bottom. Hit the big bait and I got him out of the rocks after some serious stress, the trevala made a whistling noise twice like it was about to break and then when i had the fish maybe 20 feet off the bottom he made a last ditch attempt to go home. Felt that big grouper head shake and when he tried to go down it broke the line... reeled it up and because it took me a while to get him off the bottom with that 6'6 trevala the line got frayed just enough for him to break me off. absolutely heartbreaking, was either a monster gag or maybe even a juvy goliath they're known to show up at the tower there now and again... ive had nightmares about it the past two nights it was the fish of a lifetime for NC. no other grouper hits sadly.

My vertical jigging setup is a Penn Fathom 25n on an ugly stik tiger lite 5'8 XXH. this was the first time i've been able to test it on anything of some size and even on the 40# AJ I felt confident in my gear the entire time. That fathom is a work of art and the ugly stik has some serious shoulders to it. I had a stud AJ at least 50" slam my jig and fought him for about 15 minutes, only saw him once about 40' down but he was substantially larger than the 40#. Even then I was confident in my rod and reel but the thing broke the assist hook chord off my jig with about 100 yards of line out, he was doing whatever he wanted i couldn't stop him. Wasn't all that upset about him getting off but was nice to realize how big of a fish that setup can handle easily. gonna build a grouper digger and sell that trevala that was a deal breaker for me, even though it yanked up several 150lb class sharks if it can't handle a big grouper its useless to me
 
had one of the guys i fished with send me a pic of the smallest shark and heres a shot of the rest of the bass. will have to get a pic of the last AJ with my jigging setup

AJ4.pngshark1.png

AJ4.png

shark1.png
 
Belt up and rock a broom stick for grouper. Its more strain on you but they have a harder time getting down because by the time a trevela or other jigging rod loads up he has a full head of steam.

Hell we sometimes leave the rods in the rod holder, lock down the drag and when the fish hit put the boat in gear!

No one ever said grouper fishin was sport fishin!

I like those tiger lites and the "high end" Ugly Stiks in general. I have several tigerlites and Big Water Customs my clients use.

The boat is SICK! 2014 Cape Horn 31xs with twin Yamaha 300s. Boat has a 290 gallon fuel tank and top of the line Garmin electronics getting installed. Hell the electronics package alone was over $30,000 (GPS, touch screen display, autopilot, radar, etc)! The owner is completely new to fishing and is more interested in the reef such as snapper and grouper but Im hoping to convince him that with a rig like that we could quickly run deep and try to raise a billfish or at the very least troll for wahoo mahi and tuna and then get some reef fish on the way back in.
 
man TWO 300s???!?!? good lord I bet that thing flies...

I'm definitely building a broomstick just need to find a blank with a decent tip on it. That trevala will handle 95% of the grouper you're likely to hook up with off our coast (8-25lbs) but whatever that was had to be 35-40lb+.. and the thought of that makes me sick to my stomach. With 25# of drag locked down on my torium it still peeled line like it was a joke
 
No need for a tip for those big grouper. You dont want to have to wait for the rod to load up, you want instant torque.

What size leader where you using? Its not uncommon around here to run 100-150lb mono leader material. You drop a live bait down and those grouper dont care if its attached to cable, but that heavier leader gives you a chance against structure that you know they run into instantly.

Grouper fishing, by nature, is very frustrating and youre going to lose a good number of fish no matter what you do. Scamp are probably the best tasting grouper but only average around 5lbs or so, that big one I got was a stud. Whats cool about scamp is that they are more of an open water predator swimming up and off of the bottom so you rarely have worry about structure with them.

Gags are a different story. We dropped down one large bait to let the greenhorn on the boat feel what it was like to battle a big gag and he immediately hooked up with a 30# class gag. Since they are closed down here we had to let her go only to get eaten by a shark on the way down so needless t say we didnt drop anymore big live baits for the day.

The boat is a big boat, 31'8" LOA and a 9'1" beam so those 300s wont push her much over 55 or so with a light load. However she will cruise pretty fast at around 35 eating up our short wave period chop like its nothing while sipping fuel. I expect shell get a fantastic 2mpg at cruise!
 
man thats about what we got on the 22.5 footer we were in so thats sweet for a 31.. hate that big gag got ate up on the drop i'd have felt awful. I've caught a few scamps 5-10lbs and they're definitely good eaters though i prefer reds personally. Was using 80lb mono on the leader and thought i'd be okay but i'm gonna have to amp it up.. gonna build that broomstick and may have to get a baja special to put on it to crank the jokers up. i'm on a keeper grouper drought since 2009 and i've only had two legitimate hits when fishing proper gear (both this year) in many trips out.. lot of it has been bad luck on the headboats and a lot of it has simply been the fact that we don't anchor a whole lot with the guys i go with
 
We never anchor either. How deep are you fishing? A competent captain shouldnt ever have to anchor. Its a waste of time IMO.

Live baits are key for grouper. Catch you a porgy or even one of those BSB and send em back down!

Yall must have big scamp up there, around here a 5lb fish is a very good average. One over 10lbs is an excellent fish.

I hardly get grouper in my kayak though we do catch them. I land about 10% of grouper bites from the yak. You simply cant get any leverage on them in a kayak, every action has an equal and opposite reaction and all that jazz!
 
i hear ya man i woulda got flipped yesterday if i was in a yak.. the times i've targeted grouper in my brothers boat and friends boat we've been typically in 70-90 FOW which around here in the fall and winter is well close enough for gags. On the headboats anywhere from 80-150 FOW. Rarely have I had GOOD live bait handy but I will drop a bee liner or french grunt down now and again. caught one of those bigass blacktips on a sand bass that was frustrating. I'm gonna upgrade my gear and start fishing some bigger live baits. at this point i dont need moby dick i just want a damn keeper
 
biggest problem is i fish with three people. retired guy in morehead buddy in wilmington and my brother, my brother just got a boat back this year and lost 99% of his numbers so we've done well for what we've had. retired buddy rarely likes to go offshore unless the weather is perfect because he can fish every day if he wants to so a lot of that is inshore fishing and my buddy in wilmington loves trolling and pelagics and doesnt do much bottom fishing. love all three of em great guys and great to fish with but i need to find me a buddy that wants to go digging for grouper, every time i get something setup it falls through before we get to the coast
 
In that shallow of a water you dont need to anchor, just drift over the spot and like I said earlier a good Captain should be able to hold you over a spot that shallow no problem.

We were fishing in 300ft of water for those scamp in a bad cross wind/current and didnt have an issue. We did drop 12-16oz weights though.

Do you never try to catch live bait when you go on private boats? Minnows (sardines, scad, etc) on small sabikis and then other bigger baits like porgy and sand perch with little pieces of squid.
 
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