Life, work and weather have conspired to keep me off the grouper grounds for far too long… That was remedied yesterday.
We left the marina at 05:30 not knowing exactly what we’d find for sea conditions. The forecast was for 6’ at 8 seconds, not ideal but fishable if we could get there. Once we cleared the jetties, it really wasn’t bad at all. We managed a solid 20kts all the way out to 170’.
We are still learning every time out and weren’t exactly sure where to start since it had been so long since since I had been out there. The amount of bait on the bottom was staggering. We were into fish immediately. In between the usual bottom fish (and sharks), we managed a few scamps. The hits were aggressive, the hook sets hard. Note the shark shadowing the scamp:
We moved around quite a bit searching out new humps and bumps from 200’ to 140’, dropping waypoints on the best looking stuff for future use. Everywhere we stopped, had bait and fish. By 11, we had managed to get 4 scamp past the sharks. The overall size was ok, but we decided to start moving shallow in search of bigger ones. This is my first fall out there and have been told by guys who know a lot more than I do that the grouper will begin to move shallow now so… We had marked some good looking structure on previous trips 10 miles to the west, they were barren in the warmer weather but we figured it was worth a shot.
The second we pulled up to our numbers in 112’ the screen lit up with bait and better fish…
On the very first drift, Dave got smoked. Initially we were thinking grouper but the fish continued to fight the entire way to the boat so we were second guessing what he had. Turns out, it was a nice scamp.
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Nice catch!!! love those scamps–great eating. Red Snapper are good too but it’s only two left in the ocean… LOL. Watching for a weather window to get out there.
What boat are you fushing on in 6 foot seas? DF wants to know.
The ENTER-NET Fisherman
It’s a 32’ SeaVee. With a NE wind and SE seas, we took a fair amount of spray but overall it wasn’t a bad ride at all.</font id=“blue”>
quote:Originally posted by mdaddy
And what kind of sharks were you seeing/catching? I want to know.
The ENTER-NET Fisherman
Really not sure… In addition to being a newbie to the low country species, we never got one to the boat. All of them were deep and pounced early in the fight and either broke us off or got what they needed on the way up.</font id=“blue”>
