Breakdown to Success
Catching Amberjack with Little Brother
 Editor’s
Note: While Brian Bracknell’s up in the tower
driving the boat, finding the reefs and holding the
boat over the reeds, his brother, Barry Bracknell of
Orange Beach, Alabama, is down on the deck working with
the customers, putting out the bait and coaching the
fishermen. If you think that Barry’s just a kid
brother helping his big brother run the boat, you need
to know that Barry’s quite an accomplished fisherman.
At the age of 4, he caught a winning king mackerel in
a tournament that guaranteed him an all- expense-paid
4-year college scholarship to the college of his choice
in Alabama. He’s been fishing all of his life
and understands fish and fishermen. Since amberjack
is considered a money- and a prize-fish by most anglers,
we asked Barry how he catches them.
“We fish for amberjacks primarily around rigs
and big wrecks,” Barry Bracknell says. “The
real secret to catching them is determining the depth
that they hold on, the bait they’ll eat and the
right leader material that we need to make them bite
and stay on the hook once we hook them. We start off
with a 100-pound leader, and if the amberjack refuses
the bait and I feel like they can see that leader, we’ll
drop down to a lighter  leader.
We fish about a 14-foot leader, which is an extremely-long
leader, coming off a barrel swivel with an egg-shaped
sinker above it. When we first started catching amberjack,
I learned that long leaders produced more fish than
short leaders did. I don’t think the amberjack
sees the lead as well when the bait’s swimming
on a long leader as it does when the bait’s swimming
on a short leader. Another secret to catching amberjack
is to catch one. Once you get an amberjack hooked, it
gets excited, and the other amberjack in the school
will go on a feeding spree. Once you catch the second
or third amberjack, you can shorten-up your leader and
allow more anglers to fish because the shorter leaders
won’t get tangled up like the longer leaders do.
Then your customers will catch more amberjack.
“Most people amberjack fish from halfway to the
bottom to 3/4 away from the surface. But we’ve
learned that many days when the amberjack don’t
bite, we can drop our baits all the way down to the
bottom and catch some. We’ve even caught amberjacks
all the way down on the bottom in 300 feet of water.
What I’ve learned about amberjack fishing is there
are no hard, solid rules. If the fish won’t bite
high up in the water like they’re supposed to,
many times you can let your baits all the way down to
the bottom and get the jacks to bite. Another trick
to landing a big amberjack is not to try and take up
so much line each time
you pump the rod. We’ve learned on our boat that
by making short pumps and gaining a little bit of line
each time someone pulls the rod up, he can get the amberjack
up quicker and easier than if you point the rod at the
water, and then try and pull the rod up to the 10:00
or 11:00 position. You’ve got to keep enough pressure
on the amberjack to keep it out of the rig and keep
it coming up. If we get a really-big amberjack on the
line, I’ll holler at the captain and get him to
pull the boat forward so we can get the amberjack away
from the rig. In 2006, our biggest amberjack weighed
72 pounds and we’ve caught two or three that have
weighed over 60-pounds each. Our main line is usually
80- or 100-pound test, depending on the type of bottom
we’re fishing.
“We use the 100-pound-test line when we’re
fishing around rocks in deep water. The bigger line
is usually better, but when you can’t get a bite
on that big line, you have to drop down to 80-pound
test. I also use fluorocarbon for my leader and many
times for my main line because fluorocarbon’s
harder for the jacks to see. We’ll also use about
a 16-ounce sinker when we’re fishing far offshore.
I like the heavier sinker because if you don’t
get your bait down fast, many times the barracudas will
eat it before it can get down to the amberjack.”
One of the newest features of some charter boats at
Orange Beach is the Big Green Egg. Whether you’re
fishing for snapper, amberjack, grouper or any of the
other fish you can catch, the Big Green Egg, a ceramic
smoker, seems to be a congregating point. Most captains
like Bracknell have a special table built to support
this smoker. “Becaus e
the egg’s made of ceramic, it doesn’t rust
like a metal grill will, you don’t have a lot
of grease to get rid of, and it holds heat longer and
cooks faster,” Barry explains. “Before our
customers come on board, we tell them we have a Big
Green Egg. If they want to bring smoked sausage and
biscuits for breakfast, they can cook the sausage and
the biscuits while we’re driving out to fish.
After they’ve had their breakfast of sausage and
biscuits, if they want to put a pork loin, a Boston
butt or any other meat in the Green Egg, that meat can
be cooking while we’re fishing. The Egg not only
cooks the meat, but it keeps it extremely moist and
warm. By having the Big Green Egg on the boat, anglers
can have any type of meat they’ll normally cook
on a barbecue grill before they start fishing, while
they’re fishing and when we’re on the way
back. The Big Green Egg just adds another dimension
to fishing here at the Gulf that makes a trip fun, exciting
and DELICIOUS.”
To fish with Captain Brian Bracknell, you can contact
him at (251) 471-2868, or (251) 379-8099. You also can
write him at Captain Brian Bracknell, 2405 South Vaughan
Drive, Mobile, Alabama 36605, email him at brackimk@aol.com
or visit his website, www.crowdpleezer.com.
To learn more about the Red Snapper World Championship,
check out www.orangebeachsnapper.com.
For more information on the Orange Beach area, go to
www.orangebeach.com
or call the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitor’s
Bureau at (800) 745-7263.
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