Captain’s Corner: Dave Zalewski

Dave Zalewski

460-9893

Don’t put the trolling tackle for the winter just yet. Spanish mackerel and kingfish are still around in large enough numbers to target them. The Spanish mackerel are mainly concentrated near the entrance to the passes emptying into the gulf. Right now the bait fish are on the small size and the use of smaller spoons sized 00 and 0 behind #1 planers or trolling leads is mandated to “match the hatch”. The kingfish are further offshore and we have been finding them trolling large spoons and plugs down deep by use of #2 and #3 planers or large lipped plugs on shipwrecks, artificial reefs and the markers at the beginning of the shipping channel.
Bottom fishing continues to improve in the 40 to 70 foot depths for both red and gag grouper, white grunts, porgies, and Lane snapper. Lane snapper closed today and will remain closed until January 1,2020. It has been best to start fishing on a spot with frozen sardines and squid to establish some feeding action and then switch to live pinfish when the grouper become active. Using scissors to cut small sliver of both frozen sardines, squid and any baitfish caught will increase your chance of bringing a keeper grouper home along with the stray kingfish that will be attracted to the chum and strike a deployed flatline with either a frozen or live Spanish sardine.
Fishing with a group from Canada last Tuesday demonstrated what chumming will do on occasion. Three cobia approached the boat, we immediately backed off the drags of our bottom rods so that if one of them struck the 40 pound line would not snap and hooked live pinfish on several rods and sent them to different depths. One hour, and three anglers taking turns on the rod, later we boated a 75.8 pound fish verified by the digital scale at the marina.