Fire Truck City

Firetruck1

Ran out to a new spot I named Fire Truck city yesterday. Boxed 4 red grouper between 29-34 inches. Grouper hit a good mix of dines and octopus. Bite was a little slow, but got 2 man limit nonetheless. Lots of lanes and vermillion all over and almaco jacks. Great weather ahead of this front.

Happy hunting

AndrewFL

Some good eats right there :thumbsup

Serotonin

Very nice

winterbeater89

Forgive my ignorance but what are “dines”? Also - do catch your own octopus?

Firetruck1

Dines, short for sardines. I've caught octopus while grouper fishing quite a few times on hook and line, but not on purpose-more of a stroke of luck. I usually purchase it at West Marine or Cooks Sportland in Venice. Barracuda Bills, I.E. The Mobil station gas station in Placida sometimes carries it as well. Costs anywhere between $9-$12 dollars for 1# of individual baby octopus, roughly 12 of them. Cut them in half. I prefer to use over squid being its a little tougher than squid and generally stays on the hook a little longer. Try a piece of octopus and sardine, tail off, hooked through eye on the bottom-grouper seem to enjoy it. Hope this helps!

winterbeater89

Thank you! I Have tried sardines(frozen) before on a jig but had a hard time keeping them on the hook - tend to be mushy when thawed. Are you fishing them just on a hook / knocker or fishfinder rig?

I usually fish live sand perch on a fish finder rig but it takes a lot of time to catch the perch and with myself and 3 kids - we can go through 10 of them in an hour or less if the grouper are biting - sometimes find the grouper that bite are just a little bigger that the perch!

Firetruck1

I put the hook through the eyes and rip the tail off. Ripping tail off creates extra scent and also stops the sardine from spinning around, getting tangled in line on way to the bottom...

nuclearfishn

What depth?

Firetruck1

98ft

Nailer

Nice post, and great day. Thanks for posting.