Our recent charter trip fising for Grouper and Snapper off the coast of Clearwater, Florida.

Preperation for the fishing trip.

As I prepared for my day of fishing last week, I start by checking the local weather just to double check that we would have no rough seas for the charter. According to the local meteorologist it was to be around 2 foot seas with light winds out of the north, perfect! Fishing this time of year is always a pleasure, the red and black grouper are abundant and the bait is bountiful.

Todays charter was a wonderful family from Colorado. They were more than excited to catch a fish of substantial size, apparently, and the rainbow trout in their area is the size of our bait. Because their fish are so small in comparison, it made fishing for bait a good time and a fun start to their day.

The rise of the Grouper

The sun was now above the skyline of the condo’s and we were on our way to the first rock pile stop on the hard bottom. We started with the dead bait to put the groupers senses into high gear, it worked, they started to bite immediately. The first few fish were undersized reds and blacks, which was probably a blessing for the southwest visitors, they had no idea what kind of fight these fish could put up. Then we fired down our first live bait of the day. Wham it was hit before the bait made it to the safety of the ocean floor, and no bait that day would find a safe haven, the grouper bite was incredible.

Grouper Overload!

Between my mate and myself we could hardly keep up with the demands of baiting hook after hook and removal of gags to coolers. The only relief in sites was that frequent request of the tourist to take pictures of their catch by the crew. There were a few ladies on the boat that day, and I was not so sure they were going to like fishing for grouper, but fellas these gals were the bosses, they landed more fish then the guys. Meanwhile the guys were being dragged to the grouper holes, “home,” and having the door slammed shut. We caught all we could at that location then moved onto the next hotspot.

Time to fish offshore!

This spot started off with dead bait again but nobody waited to long before they used live bait, they were anxious for the action that the larger gag grouper brought. While all this is taking place, we were entertained by the music of Jimmy Buffet on the Sirius radio and the site of moon jelly fish and a rare siting of a leatherback sea turtle, which looked to be approximately ten feet long.

The End of a Charter!

We hit about four more spots this day, the charter was more than pleased with the box full of grouper, one trigger fish and we even pulled up a keeper scamp. We were now headed back in through the Clearwater Pass, the day a full success, the charter was happy, tired and ready to share their great fishing story with friends back home. This was one of many great story filled days aboard Simply Hooked fishing charter.