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I will be down July 12 thru 15 with my kayak. Looking to buddy up with someone or more who are experienced going to some of these nearshore reefs. I haven't been farther than the color change and don't have any proper safety gear other than my cell and a divers knife (and life jacket of course). I am assuming you can catch some variety of snapper at those and maybe some schooling mahi and mackerel?
will probably prefer to fish on the Monday or Tuesday of that week but we'll see
I will be out on th Ft Morgan then....I know some great spots for King/spanish and bay fishing for specs and reds.
Hit me up with a PM and we'll go fishin
Closest reefs we have are around three miles off the beach but if you're wanting mackerel you only need to be a few hundred yards off the beach and just troll a xrap or a cigar minnow or both and you will find some fish. Make sure you have flares and a whistle because they have been checking kayaks a lot more and the coast guard requires those things if your off shore.
Yea, I've been trolling off the beach the last couple times I've been down. Using a duster rig with spoon on the end and sort of attempting to troll/cast a gotcha with no luck. All I got on the duster was two sharks so far though... Was thinking of trying one of those tube type spanish rigs - with the hopes that sharks aren't as interested in that. Or if I can figure out how (where) to catch anything with my sabiki rig, I will bait those up. I'm still happy as a clam to troll nearby like that and do some inshore, just thought it may be fun to get some bottom fish also (not to mention good to eat).
As far as safety gear, where can I find the requirements you're talking about - I looked up the coast guard brochure and it looks like they only "recommend" the whistle and didn't look like flares were required for a small nonpowered vessel - and also maybe "offshore" has different requirements?? And how far is offshore, out of state waters? I definitely will find a whistle though, that's a no-brainer on my part... :bang
What's the word on Whiskey Wreck off west beach? I know it's a popular snorkel/dive spot but how about fishing? Is it allowed or highly frowned upon...I can't seem to find anything regarding fishing. I see someone posted on here about catching grouper or AJ's there but said that was years ago
It has been many, many years since I fished the Whiskey Wreck, but I used to catch lots of flounder there and some of them were huge.
The duster with spoon needs to be trolled fast to catch Spanish (ca 5 kts). If it's slow and they get a good look at it they will not bite. That's often true of most artificials and Spanish unless they are really hungry. A steel leader like they put on most of the pre-made rigs will really make them shy. If you want to troll an artificial and can't get the 5 kts try a small naked spoon on 40 lb-ish fluoro leader (I like a Clark spoon best). This works best with the sun shining, the flash is all the attraction you need.
Best to drag/drift a smallish cigar minnow on short light wire.
I will add that the Clark spoon will twist your line pretty fast, even with a swivel in front (use the smallest Spro you can get), so you have to cut off and drag naked line every so often to get the kinks out. If you use a big swivel and they are hungry the swivel will get bit shortly after you get one on.
You really need to head over to FL waters to get any accessible by kayak reefs. I fish Navarre a fair bit and the drive is well worth it. You probably won't find any mahi in GS either.
We troll a frozen cig with a duster on 40-60lb single strand and catch all sorts of stuff, big spanish, kings, jacks, mahi. I also troll a stretch 25 and even at kayak troll speeds it dives down and has good action. You can try to use a sabiki rig to catch bait at the color change and live is always better, but I don't waste a lot of time with live bait since we catch tons of fish on the frozen cigs.