The angler with the cigar minnow is practically pulled to the gunwale of the big catamaran as his rod doubles over. There’s not much of a wait before something happens. The three rods each get a different live bait: a menhaden, a pinfish and a cigar minnow, all three hooked just forward of their anal fins, and one by one, the baits are lowered to the bottom, with the drags locked down as tight as they can go. The leader is 130-pound clear Sufix, with an Owner circle hook snelled onto the end. The lighter line is designed to break away in case it gets hung up in a fight with a grouper, so that the fish can still be pulled upwards. A short piece of 50-pound mono is tied to the swivel, with a 16-ounce bank sinker looped onto the end. Spliced onto the end of the braid on each outfit is about eight feet of 100-pound clear Sufix monofilament, which is knotted to a big, three-way swivel.
#GAG GROUPER PRO#
Dew’s grouper tackle is Daiwa Sealine conventional reels, star drags with 80-pound Power Pro braid mounted on 50- to 80-class Star standup rods - combos that are powerful, yet light enough to hold for extended periods of time.
The fishermen pick up the art almost immediately and are re-baiting and dropping again in no time. In almost no time, big sea bass and assorted other bottomfish come over the rail. The baits are lowered to the bottom, with instructions to simply reel when a solid bite is detected.Īaron helps them lower their baits to the bottom and instructs them to simply reel when they feel a solid bite. The rigs targeting black sea bass get conventional reels spooled with 50-pound mono and dropper loops, to each of which is tied a small circle hook holding a piece of squid. We’ll get everything feeding down there, and the grouper should start just about jumping into the boat.” “I’ll rig half of you up for sea bass, and the rest of you will have grouper tackle. “The key to this kind of fishing is to be patient and sneaky,” O.C. Immediately, Aaron clips a ball and a chum bag onto the downrigger, lowers the frozen mush to the bottom and cranks up several turns. It’s not a long ride to the 65-foot ledge Dew has chosen to fish, and once there, he judges the drift of the boat, repositions and gives the word to Aaron, who sends the Danforth anchor to the bottom, where it is made fast as the World Cat settles just a few feet from the intended mark on the GPS screen. As soon as he locates a cloud of bait on his bottom machine, the four anglers fill the second and third livewells with pinfish and cigar minnows - which go in separate livewells. Dew explains that the baited hooks will catch pinfish and the “naked” ones will catch cigar minnows, and he’s exactly right. We’ll use the pogies (menhaden), but the grouper prefer to have a selection.”Ī short time later, Aaron Dew hands out four spinning rods with R&R sabiki rigs, two with tiny piece of squid on the hooks and two with the hooks bare. We’re going to head to an artificial reef and jig up some other baits. “There re two keys to the fishing we’re doing,” O.C. With just a few throws of the cast net, Dew’s son, Aaron, nets several dozen baitfish for one of the livewells before Dew heads offshore for an artificial reef seven miles off the beach. Boats that call Little River, North Myrtle Beach, Calabash, Ocean Isle and Shallotte home can easily access the same areas after trips of similar duration out of either Little River or Shallotte inlets.ĭew heads east out of Shallotte Inlet and finds a school of menhaden just outside the surf line. And there’s no lack of ledges, livebottom, wrecks and reefs to search in the waters off the North Carolina/South Carolina state line. Gags move inshore to depths of 55 to 80 feet late in the summer and stay into the fall, with the bite usually beginning around Labor Day and peaking in October.
Virtually identical 33-foot catamarans, these vessels are more serviceable than sleek, boasting lots of rod storage, seating, and most important, three giant livewells apiece - which make them virtually perfect for the target species of the day, the abundant and delicious gag grouper.
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