Grouper and Amberjack
Who doesn’t love a grilled fish sandwich! What better than to make that sandwich than some fresh grouper or amberjack? Gag Grouper, red grouper, scamp grouper, amberjack, and almaco jacks are all basically year round catches here along the Emerald Coast. All make great table fare.
When to Catch Grouper and Amberjack
We catch gag grouper, red grouper, scamp grouper, amberjack, almaco jacks and warsaw groupers pretty much year round. The only thing you have to do is check the current regulations for both state and federal waters as the open and closed seasons are subject to change.
Where to Catch Grouper and Amberjack
There are several types of places to fish for grouper and amberjack. Here in the Florida Panhandle we catch them in water 100ft to 600ft deep. We find them on natural bottom (coral and rock), wrecks, edges, drop-offs and man-made reefs. For most of the places you would want to fish you can get the GPS numbers from several places. You can buy charts from Half Hitch, or you can look on line at:
www.myfwc.com/conservation/saltwater/artificial-reefs
or a county site like
www.co.okaloosa.fl.us/dept_pw_resources_reefs.html
or
www.halfhitch.com/activities/fishing/fishing-reefs
You could have a reef company build private spots for you. Most reef builders build 10 to 12 spots at a time. Normally they are built from used chicken coops
When getting numbers the counties have built many nice places. Many time they put a large reef like a tug boat down first and then make a X pattern around the tug boat using Florida Special reefs. Most people want to go and fish the tug boat in the middle of the cluster, but often you will find the best fishing on the far ends of the X pattern of reef modules up to a 1/2 mile from the larger anchor wreck. It’s easier for people to find the larger center reef and it just gets fished more.
Using Google Maps to find places is another good way of finding edges, breaks and rocks in water from 180’ to 300’ deep. Google Maps has a neat feature. If you look at Google Maps and really start to zoom in on our area you will see two lines start to appear along the coast form 180’ to 300’. The area inside of these lines is hi-definition bottom. You’ll be able to see all the rocks and ledges in this area.
We have checked known numbers for rocks and they are within 20ft. You can even use Google Maps to organize all your places.
To really catch grouper and amberjack you’ll need a good bottom machine and GPS unit. When you get to your place to fish you want to see something like this. On your bottom machine adjust so you only get the bottom 50 feet when looking for groupers. Having it tuned into the just the bottom 50ft will allow you to see the smallest of breaks or edges that may be holding fish.
Rods, Reels, and Line
For grouper and amberjacks somewhat heavier tackle is required than for every day snapper and king fishing.
The most used rods and reels are the old style Penn 4/0 or 6/0 reel with 80lb to 125lb Ande monofilament line on a solid glass Half Hitch BT78M or BT78MH rod. A
Shimano Torium 50 or a Shimano Tyranos 30 on a Shimano Tallus rod with 80lb mono works very well, too.
Terminal Tackle and Rigs
Rigs are fairly simple, there is the simple egg lead rig and my favorite is the snap lead rig. The leader should be 80lb test 6ft long with a 7/0 Owner Mutu Light hook or Eagle Claw L2004EL10/0. As for the size of lead, I like the lightest possible to be able to fish straight up and down in the current, a good rule of thumb is 1oz for every 10ft of water.
I like the snap lead rig because you don’t have to retie if you want to change lead size and can unclip the lead when running in and out and from spot to spot and the rig stores better on the rod. The only real difference is at the top of the rig, on the egg lead rig you use a barrel swivel and the snap lead rig you use a 3-way swivel at the top.
Baits
There are a variety of good natural baits. You can use frozen but of course live is better. If you are going to use a mingo snapper try butterflying him. What is Butterflying? All we are really doing is filleting out the backbone.
To catch bait look just inside the pass and just outside the pass for schools of bait fish flipping. Use a Sabiki rig to catch the bait fish. Most of the time a regular Hayabusa bait rig works great, Sometimes during a full moon the bait fish can be very finicky and difficult to catch. During this time you may need the Fluorocarbon Hayabusa bait rig to get them to bite. One of the things most people hate about catching bait is how to store the Sabiki rigs at the end of the day. I cut 4 or 5 pieces of pvc pipe 5’ long and zip tie to attach them to a leg of the T-top, I slide the bait rig lead first into the pvc pipe and hook the last hook on the edge. This way the rigs does not tangle on the rod at the end of the day
Lures
For those of you who sometimes get bored fishing with bait waiting for a bite there is always butterfly jigging. Jigging works great for snapper, grouper and amberjack. While it will work on any rod and reel having all the right components makes the whole thing work. You need a fast powerful reel like the Shimano Torium or Shimano Talica II filled with braided line and a wind-on leader. You fish a tight drag to get the fish out of the wreck on a powerful rod, Braid does not stretch and that is why you need the wind-on leader to act as a shock absorber so you do not either pull the hook on the fish or break the fish off.
Staying on the Spot (Reef, Wreck, Natural Bottom)
Trying to watch the bottom machine and GPS and stay on the spot is difficult. You see the charter boats just hover in place looking only at the electronics. Tossing over a Suremark buoy when we get to the spot makes it so much easier. The nice thing about the Suremark Buoy over other models is once you throw it over it feeds out just enough line to stay right on top of the wreck and not drift out.
Accessories to Make Your Trip Better
