A Red Grouper Primer
The summer months are prime time for red grouper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. When water temperatures reach the upper 80’s red grouper appear in massive numbers. Many years ago I did not realize there were so many grouper in our waters. Like many others I focused on man-made reefs and rarely caught a legal grouper. Then when searching open waters I found it was easy to catch small undersize grouper. Like most anglers I did not want to venture too far out with only one engine and stayed within 20 miles of Boca Grande.
Fast forward the picture 7 years and you will almost never find me fishing a public reef and I generally don’t turn on my bottom machine until I get 25-30 miles out. You will certainly see interesting features on the bottom in shallower water, schools of bait and fish but not bigger grouper. The key water depth in summer months is 75 to 90 feet of water, which puts you around 30-35 miles offshore.
Once you hit 70-75 feet turn on your fish finder and run your boat on plane as slow as possible keeping a good bottom image. I like to zoom way in and study the bottom and 10-20 feet above it. Bottom changes of 2-5 feet in a small area often hold grouper but the key is baitfish. Baitfish residing on or near the bottom will have red grouper under them. Grouper don’t look like much on the screen and resemble little squiggly lines just off the bottom. There is however no substitute for countless hours watching your bottom machine in order to pick them out.
To be truly successful at this game you need to target fish not drift fish. To target fish, position the boat upwind of your spot and drift towards it. If we hook up I repeat the same drift however I don’t find setting up a drift near the fish and letting winds and tide float the boat over the bottom very productive. Drift fishing over a mile stretch is relaxing but identifying a feature on the bottom to fish and setting on top of that will produce lots more fish. I have many spots that I expect 4 rods to bend over as soon as our baits hit the bottom. Many spots were found while fishing over bait clouds that we later discovered were over top of a swiss cheese bottom with live bottom (coral, plants, etc.) on top of the holes.
The rigs and bait for catching red grouper are pretty straightforward. Rig 4 feet of 50 pound leader to a large swivel, attach a sliding sinker on your running line and tie onto the swivel. A 5/0 to 7/0 circle hook is a good bet when using pinfish or frozen sardines or squid. All of these baits work all the time! Some days one will out fish the other however. The other option is to rig a bucktail to hook your bait on.
Red grouper pull super strong when you first hook them and the first 5 seconds can make or break (literally) you catching the fish. I prefer a high speed conventional reel which allows me to gain more line per reel handle turn when the fish first takes the bait keeping them from running into a hole and cutting me off! For safety, a satellite phone guarantees that if you break down you can call for a tow. Cell phones don’t work offshore and there is no guarantee your VHF will make contact with a tow company or the coast guard.
Capt. Chuck Eichner operates Action Flats Backcountry Charters and can be reached at 941-628-8040. Some anglers contact me because they want to own a home for bluewater sailing and some for bluewater fishing. I do it all and can show you the way.
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