Gulf Fishing Advice

[LukeBRoberson]

The fam is heading down to Port A for a long weekend, and I booked an 8 hour deep sea fishing trip. Anyone have any go to rigs they want to share with me? Colors, hook sizes, and rigging are appreciated

What's your go to?

[froghunter]

What are you headed after and what structure will you be fishing?

[LukeBRoberson]

What are you headed after and what structure will you be fishing?

King, ling, snapper and grouper. Slow trolling from one spot to the next

[S-3 Ranch]

Snapper slapper 4oz red and white, blue and white, with a short wire leader
A 6oz eggweight 24" of 80lb leader and #7/0 hook and a sand trout as bait
Or a barrel swivel a foot of wire 7/0 hook and free lined off the stern

[panhandlehunter]

If you're going on a party boat or charter don't worry about it and just have a good time. They'll have what you need.

[S-3 Ranch]

If you're going on a party boat or charter don't worry about it and just have a good time. They'll have what you need.

This save your $$ for fat tipping the deckhand

[AtTheWall]

Who are you chartering with?

They will have it dialed in - no sense in sweating details on an 8 hour trip.

Kingfish should be plentiful and the boat will have king leaders, ribbon fish as well as single hook setups - circle hooks with a small section of stainless stranded leader with the mainline tied to a barrel swivel. Bait on this rig will be a sardine and it's a go to setup, if and when Cobia are spotted.

You may engage with some serious Cobia, King action on top and they will have the rigs dialed in to cover.

Red snapper aren't legal so the only real option on bottom rigs, Atlantic Sharpnose sharks (Bull Tiger - local name to elevate it's status with charter anglers).....so drifting deep may be out of the question?

8 Hour trips don't put you too many miles offshore so the only realistic opportunity, which is a decent and viable pursuit are....kingfish and cobia (ling - lemon fish).

Good luck. Don't over analyze it......8 hours isn't long enough to make a lot of change and, considering the skipper has a sail plan setup well before y'all sail, he's got the setups dialed in. It's his livelihood.

[LukeBRoberson]

Snapper slapper 4oz red and white, blue and white, with a short wire leader
A 6oz eggweight 24" of 80lb leader and #7/0 hook and a sand trout as bait
Or a barrel swivel a foot of wire 7/0 hook and free lined off the stern

Thank you sir.

I'm big on the trailer hooks.

I think the captain is more like a guy that bought a boat that his old lady didn't want him to buy, and he copy/pasted the info from another website.

[LukeBRoberson]

Who are you chartering with?

They will have it dialed in - no sense in sweating details on an 8 hour trip.

Kingfish should be plentiful and the boat will have king leaders, ribbon fish as well as single hook setups - circle hooks with a small section of stainless stranded leader with the mainline tied to a barrel swivel. Bait on this rig will be a sardine and it's a go to setup, if and when Cobia are spotted.

You may engage with some serious Cobia, King action on top and they will have the rigs dialed in to cover.

Red snapper aren't legal so the only real option on bottom rigs, Atlantic Sharpnose sharks (Bull Tiger - local name to elevate it's status with charter anglers).....so drifting deep may be out of the question?

8 Hour trips don't put you too many miles offshore so the only realistic opportunity, which is a decent and viable pursuit are....kingfish and cobia (ling - lemon fish).

Good luck. Don't over analyze it......8 hours isn't long enough to make a lot of change and, considering the skipper has a sail plan setup well before y'all sail, he's got the setups dialed in. It's his livelihood.

When you say top, is it a true top water, or a few feet below the water? I'm real curious about finding a good depth, or height off of the bottom

I'm only used to fishing bass, crappie, perch, and carp.

[Buck hunter332]

I'll hopefully be at the first rig this weekend catching kings and if we're lucky a ling.

[kaizen]

Snapper should be legal on the weekends through Sept 5 unless they changed something recently that I missed. TPWD worked a deal by closing state snapper during the week during summer. I go lighter than most people and have been catching my best snapper on a 30lb dropper loop, 6 oz bank sinker and the biggest bait I can put on a big circle hook. I mainly fish on wrecks. So, I get up wind drop the bait to the bottom, crank up a couple feet and stick the rod in rod holder. I then use a vertical jig until the rod goes off. I usually catch a snapper every drift through the fish. I take a few new guys out and they really struggle feeling the bottom if they don't have braid especially if they are using 30lb gear with a stretchy mono. I personally use an abu 6500 with 50 lb braid on a flipping stick for snapper.

If you are trolling for kingfish, put a ribbon fish in the prop wash maybe 10 yds behind the boat. Off the corners you can use whatever you want spoons, rapala, etc. A lot of the time, I just put out multiple ribbon fish. They will be skipping across the surface. Kings will come completely out of the water to hit it. Really, your captn should have that figured out and you should be able to jus set back. At the rig, we usually drift a ribbon fish out on a balloon rigged so the bait is about 6' down and then drift another one weightless that will end up 15' or so down. Most of the time if kings are around you don't have time to get both rods out and if you do double hook ups happen a lot. When you first pull up to a rig, you will often hit a couple kings quick and then get a lull but more usually are cruising around.

Ling are a frustrating fish. They are incredible dumb and finicky at the same time. You never know which one will show up but I keep a spinning real rigged with a mono leader and just a hook. I also keep a few live piggy perch. If you see a ling toss out the live perch and you are good. He will nail it. If all you have is dead bait, it gets tricky. He may eat but will likely swim up to it and turn his nose away. Maybe push it around some. You will need to tease it.

[Tazman70]

Went on a 12h offshore trip out of Free Port couple weeks ago. Serious actions on kings, lings, and red snapper (can't keep if you're on charter boat). It was about 90 miles out. See video below.

https://youtu.be/2EjjL_80-Zw