December 15, 2011 Perdido Key to Cape San Blas
Includes Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Panama City and Port St. JoeOffshore
The bite offshore has been great and this weekend is a great time to catch some awesome fish. Amberjack, scamp grouper, and vermilion snapper are your best bets for quality keepers, but getting by the red snapper can be tough in less than 125 feet of water. If catch and release is your thing, shallow water wrecks are offering some awesome red snapper and undersized amberjack fun. It seems that very few have made it out to fish for tunas, but those that have reported some great catches. Anytime now, the 100-plus pound fish should be showing up.
INSERT PHOTO PH1 here. Caption: Hot red snapper inside 125 feet is solely a catch and release affair this time of year. Still, scamp grouper and vermilion snapper catches are able to be brought home for dinner.
Almost all of the edges in 200-plus feet are holding quality scamp, vermilions and amberjack. Some schools of amberjack are running 40 pounds and hitting fast moving jigs or large live baits. These fish fight incredibly hard and require leaders to 60 and 100 pounds with large circle hooks. Most of the larger amberjacks will be cruising midway up the water column, keeping baits in this area requires some patience but usually pays off.
This area is also going to be the prime place to catch large vermilion snapper. Two-drop rigs made with light leader and small circle hooks will keep fish coming over the gunnels. Scamp will be holding in the bottom 10 feet of water. Small live baits work the best but can be challenging to come by this time of year. Most of the small baits are holding in the deeper pockets of the bay over rocks or near jetties and docks. Spending the time to catch live baits does payoff when fishing for scamp—make sure you do it.
The pelagic bite has been about the same, but the bruiser tunas should be showing anytime. Many tuna between 40 to 80 pounds are being caught at the rigs. A few have reported some wahoo to the southwest, near the rigs. When fishing for tuna, keeping baits way back while trolling is a must. If trolling isn’t your thing there are still plenty of ways to catch tuna. Vertical jigging is a favorite but requires a lot of energy. Live baiting and chunking will also produce, but catching the bait can be challenging. Last would be topwater lures, but the downside is everything has to be perfect for this to work. The key to tuna fishing is using all of these at different times depending on conditions and crew. The biggest part of tuna fishing is preparation, so if you don’t get to go this weekend, plenty can still be done.