Hello Steve.

Sorry you felt that away about the trip. 

You asked some good questions and I will take this opportunity to respond to them.

We have been using rigs of that size to successfully catch grouper here for 20 years.  There is always a trade-off between the size of the gear and the size of the fish that are available.  The gear we use is a good compromise and allows us to target both grouper and snapper with the same rig.  The fish that bent the hook swallowed whole the 8” tomtate you had hooked.  A heavier rig might have landed the fish, but you probably would not have hooked the tomtate in the first place.

We use only the sardine heads because the way we hook them requires a fish to pull hard to get it off of the hook.  We buy whole frozen sardines, cut them and use the tails for chum.  We also used frozen squid and some cut bait that we caught that day.

We did catch a grouper, although it was short, along with a keeper lane snapper and a keeper black sea bass.  And yes, we threw the tomtates back.

Finally, cold fronts do impact the fishing here.  3 days before our trip a front went through with 30 mph winds and a significant temperature drop.  As you will recall, we did cancel the trip you had scheduled for the day before for weather related reasons.

Hope your next is more to your liking. In

Zac

Hello Steve. Sorry you felt that away about the trip.  You asked some good questions and I will take this opportunity to respond to them. We have been using rigs of that size to successfully catch grouper here for 20 years.  There is always a trade-off between the size of the gear and the size of the fish that are available.  The gear we use is a good compromise and allows us to target both grouper and snapper with the same rig.  The fish that bent the hook swallowed... More