# 2-10-12 report



## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

Today I learned that a knife jig will catch grouper and to my surprise, trigger fish. The knives weren't too effective at catching AJ's today though. I think I hooked into 3, but two broke off and another pulled the hook. It was cloudy so I'm blaming the lack of sunshine. Since my father in law was occasionally pulling up rubies, squirrelfish, and porgies, I set out a pole with live bait too. Fortunately I didn't hook up any sharks, but I pulled several of my baits up that only had a head left. I had a surprising number of really hard take downs that didn't hook up but killed or maimed my bait. We only boated 3 AJ's all day, two of them being keepers. My father in law also caught a crap load of triggers. We released them all, but I wish we had taken a couple pictures. A few were around 18 inches and one was 20 inches. I'm not sure if those qualify as big triggers, but they are biggest I've seen so far. A lot of bobos were around too so I threw one of my light knife jigs with a light rod out and with a quick retrieve hooked into one. We hit several spots from 20 to 25 miles out. The action may have been a little slow, but it was so nice out there that I didn't care. There was also a really prominent rip line. There were lots of weeds, some bubbles, and a distinct difference in the surface from one side to the other. It went for miles. The water was really warm too. I thought about trolling for dolphin, but decided to just keep going to AJ's. I would think that something would be found on that line, but I'm not sure what or how to fish it so I just stuck with what I knew. It might have been different if we already had our limit of AJ's. Sorry about the lack of pics. We got a cobia boat side and it jumped up and slapped the camera into the water before it broke off


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## Snatch it (Feb 17, 2009)

Trophyhusband said:


> Today I learned that a knife jig will catch grouper and to my surprise, trigger fish. The knives weren't too effective at catching AJ's today though. I think I hooked into 3, but two broke off and another pulled the hook. It was cloudy so I'm blaming the lack of sunshine. Since my father in law was occasionally pulling up rubies, squirrelfish, and porgies, I set out a pole with live bait too. Fortunately I didn't hook up any sharks, but I pulled several of my baits up that only had a head left. I had a surprising number of really hard take downs that didn't hook up but killed or maimed my bait. We only boated 3 AJ's all day, two of them being keepers. My father in law also caught a crap load of triggers. We released them all, but I wish we had taken a couple pictures. A few were around 18 inches and one was 20 inches. I'm not sure if those qualify as big triggers, but they are biggest I've seen so far. A lot of bobos were around too so I threw one of my light knife jigs with a light rod out and with a quick retrieve hooked into one. We hit several spots from 20 to 25 miles out. The action may have been a little slow, but it was so nice out there that I didn't care. There was also a really prominent rip line. There were lots of weeds, some bubbles, and a distinct difference in the surface from one side to the other. It went for miles. The water was really warm too. I thought about trolling for dolphin, but decided to just keep going to AJ's. I would think that something would be found on that line, but I'm not sure what or how to fish it so I just stuck with what I knew. It might have been different if we already had our limit of AJ's. Sorry about the lack of pics. We got a cobia boat side and it jumped up and slapped the camera into the water before it broke off


 HAHAHAHA The last part was priceless!!!!:thumbup::thumbup:


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## oxbeast1210 (Jun 21, 2010)

Lol

Man I can't wait to learn to fish out there . I lack some skills


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

Me too. I want to know how to fish a nice rip line like that. Lots of neat stuff in those rip lines later in the year.


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## oxbeast1210 (Jun 21, 2010)

U got way more skills then me I was talking about u going an catching some fish I wanted to go bad this weekend


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## Captain Mickey O'Reilly (Dec 18, 2008)

Great sounding trip, and those triggers were very nice! A nice rip like that would be nice to mess with, especially dolphin!


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

I want so bad to find some dolphin. I caught one in the fall only a few miles out but at the time I didn't know to keep it in the water to keep the school around. What are the chances they would have been in that line yesterday? Do they come closer at a certain time of the year or will they just follow the warm water? My xducer doesn't give me water temp, but that water was really warm. I keep forgetting to grab my probe thermometer from the kitchen so I can check water temp. Is water clarity also a factor? The water looked very clear, but it was cloudy so I couldn't tell if it was really blue.


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## MrFish (Aug 21, 2009)

> The water looked very clear, but it was cloudy so I couldn't tell if it was really blue.


You'll know Blue water when you see it. You won't be wondering if it is green or blue.


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## MrFish (Aug 21, 2009)

Here's one that was posted a little while back.


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

There was certainly no green to it, but cloud layer really created a ton of glare making it. What's weird is that I spent four of my six years in the Navy on a ship that spent more time at sea than in port. I spent a ton of time looking at the ocean, but not looking at it with an offshore fisherman's eye's. Growing up in Washington and doing most my fishing within sight of land, I've always paid close attention to the surface and the waves. I've only gone blue water fishing out there once.


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

MrFish said:


> Here's one that was posted a little while back.


Yeah, it certainly wasn't like that.


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## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Trophyhusband said:


> Me too. I want to know how to fish a nice rip line like that. Lots of neat stuff in those rip lines later in the year.



Put some lines out and troll it! You can also sight fish the larger pieces of debris.


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## jamessig (Oct 3, 2007)

I'm surprised you released all the triggers, they are one of the best eating fish in the gulf.


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

sniperpeeps said:


> Put some lines out and troll it! You can also sight fish the larger pieces of debris.


This time of year that close in? If so, I'll give trolling a try next time I'm in that situation. Bonito were plentiful for cut bait, could there have been black fin there to chunk for? It didn't even cross my mind at the time, but I would have given that a try.


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## MrFish (Aug 21, 2009)

If I were looking for AJ and came across a good weed line, then I'm dropping the AJ plan and putting a spread out. I mean a good formed weed line, not scattered grass though.


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

jamessig said:


> I'm surprised you released all the triggers, they are one of the best eating fish in the gulf.


If I had known we were going to catch a bunch I would have. Usually we only catch a couple. Once we started releasing them, we just kept throwing them back.


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## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Trophyhusband said:


> This time of year that close in? If so, I'll give trolling a try next time I'm in that situation. Bonito were plentiful for cut bait, could there have been black fin there to chunk for? It didn't even cross my mind at the time, but I would have given that a try.



You said you were 20-25 miles out, and by that I guess you probably headed S-SW out of the pass. You are very close to the edge there and with a good weed line this time of year with the water as warm as it is, you could really catch anything.


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## Trophyhusband (Nov 30, 2011)

I just plugged my SD card into the computer and looked at my track from yesterday. The farthest I made it south was about 21 miles. I'm not sure exactly what is considered the start if the edge, but as far as I can tell my closest point of approach was about 5 1/2 miles.


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## sniperpeeps (Mar 5, 2011)

Trophyhusband said:


> I just plugged my SD card into the computer and looked at my track from yesterday. The farthest I made it south was about 21 miles. I'm not sure exactly what is considered the start if the edge, but as far as I can tell my closest point of approach was about 5 1/2 miles.



Thats about right, when you hit 170 ft it will start dropping quick


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## ryanbr (Oct 10, 2007)

Grab a couple of lipped plugs, halco plugs(looks like a fish with a flat head) and jigs. Try throwing a diamond jig horizontally along that line especially if that color change is around your bottom spot. And if you have any live bait, freeline one nose hooked or in the top of the back while you're drifting. Get with your local tackle shop to show you how to rig some of your lures. You don't need a full trolling set up to put out a couple of plugs. But it does help to have 2 seperate rods to troll so you don't have to keep swapping back and forth on your bottom rods


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## tugfisher76 (Aug 5, 2011)

if you ever need a extra jigger im up im home till the 22nd


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