Get Ready For The Gulf Grab Bag
Summertime often sees favorable conditions for deep Gulf of Mexico runs and anglers who plan well and prepare diligently can capitalize on tremendous bottom fishing opportunities. Seasons are tightly controlled, so know the regulations, but the species abundance ensures there’s almost always something to take home for dinner.
Reefs & Rocks: The most basic of Gulf structure, this natural “hard bottom” offers lots of cover and hidey holes for gag, red, and scamp grouper, along with various snappers (mangrove, lane, yellowtail, red). Venture past the 200-foot range and you might add more prized species such as snowy grouper, Kitty Mitchell grouper, and black grouper.
Baits and rigs vary by species, but trust your big bites to the strength and durability of a Mustad Demon Perfect Circle Hook. Along with the traditional heavy slip sinker bottom rigs, keep a double dropper setup with a terminal weight (“chicken rig”) handy for the assortment of smaller reef species such as triggerfish, vermillion snapper, hogfish, grunts, and porgies. Smaller Mustad Demon Inline Circle Hooks work well here.
(Federal regulations require circle hooks for all Gulf of Mexico reef species.)
Wrecks: Nautical and aviation mishaps, while certainly tragic, eventually provide habitat for a wide assortment of bottom species, as well as those that like to hover above. One of the Gulf’s toughest fighting fish, the amberjack, commonly patrols wrecks, while barracuda add to the fun.
Deep Dropping: Put about 500-plus feet under the boat, and it’s time to break out the broomstick rods with electric reels and deploy multi-hook rigs with light sticks and several pounds of lead weights. Setting up precision drifts, calculating current and timing your drops to hit the targets requires considerable skill and experience, but the payoff can be astounding.
From giant Warsaw, black, and yellow edge grouper, to queen snapper and golden tilefish, deep drops deliver species most anglers never see. Long runs require a significant fuel, ice and bait investment, so pick your days for optimal weather patterns and moon phases.
Targets of Opportunity
While working deep Gulf bottom sites, stay alert for the pelagics that may show up at any moment. Cobia are notorious for basically sniffing the transom, so keep a heavy spinning outfit with either a Mustad Big Eye Bucktail Jig or a live baitfish on a Mustad Demon Perfect Hook handy.
Throughout the Gulf wahoo, king mackerel, dolphin, blackfin tuna, and sailfish might be lurking just out of sight, so experienced anglers always keep a “flat line” deployed 100-plus feet off the stern. That same baitfish and circle hook setup works for the dolphin, tuna, and sails, but if you suspect kings and wahoo, a wire leader and a stinger rig increases your chances of snaring these slashing predators.
Basic stinger rig: Mustad Beak Live Bait Hook trailing a Mustad Kingfish Treble on a 3- to 4-inch piece of wire.
Whatever your focus, keep a diverse supply of Mustad Sabiki Rigs in your tackle bag. Baiting up on the way out offers a good starting point, but you’ll often encounter various bait schools from big threadfin herring (“greenbacks”) to blue runners on location.
Open water bait schools often indicate reefs or rock formations below, as the forage may rise to warm their backs. In this, or a known destination, hard bottom sites may offer multiple forage species, so grabbing a couple dozen of the local food source just makes sense.