Story and Photos By Joe Richard

A huge gag grouper “flashed” on a shallow-running Rapala plug, missing it, creating consternation with our crew. We would need bigger tackle to stop such a fish. Thirty-pound groupers just have a way of returning to their favorite holes, when you hook them on spin tackle, especially in 10 to 12 feet of water.

Only the week before, another guest on Capt. Todd Corneillie’s 22-foot bay boat had a similar grouper follow his plug with murderous intent. It grabbed the plug at boatside, snapping the 50-pound braided line with a loud crack. That angler had been too startled to loosen the drag at point-blank range. That fish had shown no fear of the boat.

Most anglers will deny you can catch grouper on shallow-running plugs in the United States, but it’s true. We landed 35 grouper on this calm day, along Florida’s Big Bend Coast on the Gulf of Mexico. The bottom offshore of Crystal River and Homosassa is exceedingly shallow and festooned with limestone rock formations, a real boater’s nightmare for neophytes. While trolling, we passed one rock that was within three feet of the surface, and showed signs of collisions.

Seatrout anglers here are always startled by the number of legal-size and much bigger gags that attack their plugs. These shallow rock-reef habitats are vitally important to the Gulf of Mexico’s gag grouper population. Tiny gags that matured in the rich grassbeds inshore move farther out once they’re big enough to avoid predators and compete for food on inshore reefs. These slow-growing fish spend their older juvenile life stages on these reefs, and adults return opportunistically, when water temperatures are inviting.

A few local guides have switched over to a directed grouper fishery, marking rocks and saving them with the GPS, then returning and tossing plugs at them all day. The trick is to anchor perhaps 25 yards from the darker rocks, with yellow sand below the boat. The best rocks, incidentally, have a white ring around them. Small grazing fish that grouper eat chew back seagrasses from the reef edge outward as far as they are brave enough to feed.

The sand under your boat offers no protection for hooked fish, of course. Begin plugging over the rocks, and watch for grouper that follow. When they hit, often near the boat, they have a long run back to the rock. If you use 50-pound braided line, you’ve left ample distance between boat and reef unless you latch on to a determined 15-pounder close to the rock, or a monster like the fish we saw. (Gags are masters of camouflage and once over sand, become quite pale. This whitish “flash” in green water often serves as first notice of a strike).

If the tide, or the bite, is slow, it pays to chum with small chunks of frozen bait to draw grouper from their lairs. This same area also has a few freshwater springs that go way underground, often housing dozens of these fish. The only way of ringing the dinner bell, so to speak, is adding enticing scent to the water. However, coaxing grouper within two feet of the surface can be a chore in bright sunlight.

You need a variety of plugs that will at least skim down to six, 10 and 12 feet, especially when these fish don’t feel like rising to the surface. One silver Storm lure with a bigger lip swam beautifully 12 feet down and over a hole alongside a shallower rock. Boom! Four grouper on five casts, with one of them a 16-pounder. That same plug caught at least 20 grouper, and we traded it around. The front treble hook was finally torn off, and our bow angler waited while Todd robbed another plug and replaced the hook. Soon it was catching more fish. (Robbing Peter to pay Paul, or something like that.) But that’s why a variety of plugs are necessary. You never know what the hot color will be on any given day, which may be predicated on what these grouper are feeding on. Murky water may move in, which means something like a firetiger pattern shows up better. A deeper hole might require a real diving plug, as well. I even tried a Mann’s Stretch-25, a hard-diving plug that is difficult to cast and retrieve—especially in 12 feet of water. However, with just the right speed, it wiggled along just over the sand and was slammed by a grouper of 12 to 14 pounds.

According to Todd, most of these grouper wait under a rock for a passing meal, then dart out and begin following, deciding to attack or not. It all depends on the lure’s action, sunlight brilliance, water clarity or how hungry that grouper really is. When hungry, these fish will attack multiple prey. Todd catches them with baitfish still alive in their mouths, or even thumping around in their stomachs, including lizardfish up to 13 inches.

These are lively fish, even in the boat. Always use pliers when unhooking plug-caught grouper. Long-neck hookouts seem a little delicate for the job. Better to use heavy-duty needlenose pliers with a bend in the handle, for backing hooks out of the many undersize fish that need to be released quickly. Be careful of grouper thrashing on deck, with loose treble hooks snapping around quicker than the eye can follow. Bury one of those heavy trebles in your hand or leg, and the day is over.

For tackle, Todd uses fairly heavy, 61⁄2-foot spinning rods matched to fast-retrieve spinning reels spooled with 50-pound braid. That’s heavy for grouper of less than 22 inches, which is the legal size. As a guide, Todd wants to see grouper landed, happy faces, plenty of releases, and a few big fish on the cleaning table each evening, instead of woeful tales of the fish that got away. An experienced angler could probably have more fun using 15-pound spin on dozens of these fish, with expectations of landing keepers, as well. However, getting “rocked up” by a 15-pounder is almost a certainty.

Sometimes these hooked fish can be coaxed out of their hole, after getting “rocked up.” One can wait patiently, or strum the line when taut. It’s also possible to dive down with a snorkel and grab the leader, pulling them out manually. I’ve even fatally knifed a 14-pounder (under a rock) through the pectoral fin, before dragging him out by the leader. This isn’t encouraged on guide boats, however.

As it turns out, the local grouper aren’t plug-crazy all year. November is best, when they’re fattening up for winter. But these grouper are available almost year-round.

“We have caverns 20 or 30 feet underground with these fish in them, and you can feel that 72-degree water in summer—it’s much cooler than our bay water. We’ve actually anchored the boat in three feet of water on the grassflats and dropped a live pinfish down 30 feet underground, on 80-pound braid line, trying to horse these fish up through a crack only a foot or two wide.

It doesn’t work very well, admits Todd.

If you’re chasing these shallow-water fish beginning in March, bring live bait and cut baits, and pitch them over the same rocks. The water normally clears up each March as cold weather has knocked back the diatoms and other plankton that cloud it. That’s a great time to cruise along, spotting dark rock patches and marking them on your GPS. It helps to build up a collection of spots, of course.

“We catch these grouper each summer on plugs, but live bait works better,” Todd says. “They mostly hug bottom then, and we see them while scalloping with snorkel gear in July and August. They don’t seem as aggressive in summer, as at their peak during autumn, when they’re fattening up for winter.”

Todd says he wants to try night fishing for these grouper in summer, because the caves are also full of 14- to 16-inch mangrove snapper that bite only at night. Combining them with grouper at night would make for some interesting action. However, moving around at night in rocky country can be very hard on boats, and your nerves.

SWA