The deepwater closure of grouper is now over effective April first. This means you can now harvest any grouper species besides gag grouper which is closed in any depth of water! If we were heading out right now on a 39 hour trip we would be fishing around 150-250 ft of water looking for fat red grouper, bigger scamp grouper, fat triggerfish and large mangrove snapper. Plus, we would have the flat lines and pitch rods ready for the pelagics. There’s lots of kingfish and tuna out there beyond 100ft of water right now and there’s the occasional wahoo or sailfish too!
Triggerfish are only open until May 2nd so that would be our focus on nice ledges with hopefully lots of snapper, scamp a few red grouper mixed in with he inevitable break offs from big gags along the way. Fishing lighter tackle around 40-60lb right now would be the best idea since gags are closed and the other species won’t rock you up quite as badly. Plus, lighter tackle will help entice the snapper and more leader-shy fish to cooperate.
