BETTER SNAPPER STRATEGIES
More and Bigger Snapper Drift Lining
EDITOR'S
NOTE: With snapper season in high gear this summer,
I've collected new and better ways to catch more and
bigger snapper. And there’s plenty of good news
on the Upper Gulf Coast this summer. If you look at
the area Hurricane Dennis went through in July, 2005,
you’ll see the resulting destruction, but not
nearly as much as Hurricane Ivan caused. Many of the
charter boats are still up and running, however many
of the fisherman normally there at this time of the
year aren’t, but you should be and here’s
why. Right after a major disturbance in the Gulf of
Mexico, like Hurricane Dennis, bottom feeders like snapper
and grouper migrate. If history repeats itself, the
Alabama/Mississippi Gulf Coast would have a tremendous
influx of grouper and the Florida Panhandle, including
the Destin and Panama City area, should have a huge
influx in snapper. Right now, you have a window of opportunity
to travel to the Upper Gulf Coast and catch more and
bigger snapper than ever before.
If you learn to fish the drift-line technique of presenting
a bait slowly and gently to red snapper and other bottom
feeders, you can catch more and bigger snapper and grouper
on every trip to saltwater. I had to learn this lesson
the hard way while fishing on the “Summer Hunter,”
a charter boat based at Orange Beach, Alabama. Each
time we stopped over a wreck or a reef, I'd let my heavy
lead sinker free-spool to the bottom. But Debbie Wilhite,
the first mate on the “Summer Hunter,” fished
a 7-foot spinning rod and would cast her bait and a
small slip sinker upcurrent toward the front of the
boat. Then she'd feed out line as the whole cigar minnow
on her line drifted slowly to the bottom. I thought
by getting to the bottom quickly that I could catch
the biggest fish on the reef. However,
Wilhite consistently caught more and bigger snapper
up off the bottom than I did on the bottom. I soon learned
that the slower I arrived with my bait at the bottom,
the bigger snapper I would catch.
I've learned that often black snapper will drift further
behind the boat than I can see, or they'll hold in water
so deep that I can't spot my cigar minnow. Once the
fish takes the bait, I'll let the line free-spool off
the reel for about a three count until the fish tightens
up the line. Then I'll set the hook. Next, I'll back
off the drag so that the snapper can run with only slight
drag pressure and to keep from breaking the fish off.
Take your time bringing black snapper in because of
their strength. If you try to overpower them, they often
will cut the line.
At the first wreck we stopped on, I immediately got
a bite when my bait hit the bottom. As the fish pulled
against the rod and I began to take up line through
the blue-green water, the little twitches on the line
and the flashes of red and silver I saw in the water
signalled that I had on a small snapper. When I looked
over my left shoulder, Wilhite's rod tip almost touched
the butt of her rod. "Come on, take the rod,"
Wilhite offered. "No, I'll fish with what I've
got," I answered.
I used a typical sow rig with a 1/2-ounce lead sinker
up the line, a barrel swivel below the sinker, 4 feet
of 50-pound-test line from the barrel swivel to the
No. 5/0 hook and a live pinfish for bait. In the months
before, I'd caught plenty of big snapper using this
rig. But as we continued to fish, Wilhite kept catching
bigger snapper than I did. Finally when my desire to
catch big snapper overpowered my dedication to the rig
I fished, I asked Wilhite to show me how she used spinning
tackle, a small weight and dead bait to take large snapper.
"All you do is cast upcurrent and free-line your
bait out as it drifts back toward the boat," Wilhite
coached. The first time I tried the tactic,
I caught a nice 5-pound snapper. Throughout the rest
of the day, I became even more convinced that drift-line
fishing could put more and bigger red snapper, black
snapper and amberjack in the boat than any other technique
of saltwater fishing I'd ever tried.
How the Wilhites Learned Drift-Line Fishing:
Captain Jack Wilhite and his wife, Debbie, have fished
the waters off Orange Beach for more than 40 years.
They consistently bring in nice catches of large snapper
using this drift-line tactic. When I asked Wilhite how
he learned this technique, he explained, "When
we vacationed in the Florida Keys, the captain we fished
with made a ball of sand, clay and chum and lowered
it down to a depth of about 30 feet where we saw fish
holding up off the bottom. As the chum ball began to
disintegrate, it created a cloud in the water and left
a chum line that brought yellowtail snapper up and caused
them to feed. Then we free-lined our baits down to that
depth where the chum was being released to catch the
snapper. We tried that same method here in Orange Beach,
and it worked very successfully to pull bigger snapper
up off the bottom and get them to take a bait floating
through the chum line. However, as we watched our parties
fish through the years, we noticed the snapper regurgitated
as our anglers brought them up off the bottom. This
action by the hooked snapper
created chum about 40 feet off the bottom. Even as the
hooked snapper got close to the boat and regurgitated,
we'd see bigger snapper coming up to feed."
Wilhite also noticed that when his anglers threw out
pieces of cigar minnows, the bigger snapper came toward
the surface, grabbed the baits and ran to the bottom.
To try and catch these snapper coming up off the bottom,
the Wilhites started free-lining dead cigar minnows
out behind the boat. However, the cigar minnows didn't
get down deep enough to attract the larger snapper.
For more information on fishing, go to www.orangebeach.com
or call (800) 745-7263.
TOMORROW: HOW TO RIG FOR DRIFT LINING
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