Bass on Steriods

While I have caught grouper up to 42-pounds in the Bahamas, a very respectable gag these days is anywhere from 10-pounds and up. Some landed in 3-4 feet of water depth.  Who would ever think that a grouper that size would live in such shallow water.  Gags(mistakenly called black grouper)commonly spend most of their adult lives in deeper water.  While incidental I have caught them in the lower river. In the late 80's, Gag and red grouper size limits when I started were 12" with no bag. 24" is the new size limit today.

Since the regulations of size and bag limits were implemented, a steady rise of fish populations have increased despite chaos between fishermen.  Tightening the regulations is a good thing except for the mighty Jew Fish aka Goliath grouper.(Goliath was a Philistine. The change from an easily pronounced 1 syllable name to 3 syllables irks me.  Therefore, it is still a jew fish in my book.  Simply put, why is a 700 pound fish allowed to eat a 10 to 30 pound grouper and continue to be protected from harvest. From a reliable source an estimate of over a million pounds a year are eaten by Jew Fish. Since they are protected, the decline of gags around wrecks continue to diminish.

Over the years fishermen and ladies have located spots that have tunnels to the aquifer.   Sometimes the opening can be less than the size of the fish in some cases. This indicates that the tunnel is connected to another opening or openings.  A 10-pound fish in a 5-pound hole!

One such crack, crevice or old Spring I am describing was such a place that was clearly connected to tunnels below and side to side corridor miles long(divers have lost their lives in there), located in 3 feet of water on low tide.  My anglers JM and I had been out fishing for other species, mainly trout.  Of course, you can catch a dozen or more different species while trout fishing.

My ole friend and the best there ever was in my book showed me this spot 40 years ago(God!).  He used the point of one island and a landmark on the mainland.  This is called dead reckoning and I reckon most young whippersnappers don’t know what that is with GPS and all.

I had been after this beast of a grouper using light tackle with heavy test braid at least for two trips. The first man was elderly and just not strong enough to keep the fish out of the hole.  Once it goes down, the rocks are sharp and the line gets cut.

The picture of me and the grouper that did not get away was from a trip with Pat Burchard and daughter, probably, Sue. They loved fishing and being outdoors as good as anyone I have met. We fished many times. This picture was taken by them. I love the lighthouse on Monkey Island in the background.

You have to realize that most grouper have spent their entire lives living around structure.  They live inside it and only come out to browse and forage for food.  If they feel something is wrong like resistance, they head towards the rocks to hole up thus breaking the line and leader.

But, because of braid fishing line making a tremendous comeback in sales and usage by grouper diggers, many more grouper are being landed compared to the use of monofilament of past.  

The dawn of bait or spin casting large lures with lighter stiff rods came into play using 50-pound braid.   I for one became a shallow water guide catching limits almost every day and many more… to be continued... there are so many more exciting trips that a lot of you have great memories of.

Keep your rod tip up...