The hogfish bite has been good this past week, a little hit and miss but for the most part we had some epic days. For example, on half day trip this past week netted nearly 20 keeper hogfish. The all-day trips were close to 30 on the good days too. Plus, besides the hogfish we were seeing some nice sized mangroves, plenty of lane snapper, some vermillion snapper and even the occasional flounder on the swing or drift. Red grouper bite isn’t crazy but were seeing a few decent keeper grouper from time to time too. The all day is getting most of the action around 60-100ft of water while the half day is fishing around 40-50ft and mainly getting the hogfish and plenty of white grunts or what we call grey snapper.
The hogfish bite is best around 40-90ft of water this past week on the live shrimp and knocker rig with around 1oz lead 3-4ot hook and 15-20ft of 30lb floro on a spinning rod and reel combo with around 25-30lb braid.
Mangrove snapper, lane snapper and vermillion are mixed in with the hogfish around 60-100ft of water but the deeper you go the better the mangrove and lane snapper size and the more prolific the vermillion.
Red grouper we are seeing sporadically through the near shore waters but were seeing better consistency on keeper sized fish the deeper you get.
