Eastern Tackle Jig Report - AP & Grouper

[Sea Draggin]

Sometimes in life "its the journey not the destination", but this was NOT one of those times It was ALL ABOUT the Destinations and the Plan!

The weather was slick glass calm and uneventful other than some very unusual cloud formations. It had been 8 weeks since I had been, because I have been sidelined by a broken foot.

THE PLAN: Go to the reef and jig some AP's, then high-speed troll up and out to the groupers.

We went directly to the reef and jigged around it a bit. Normally the fish are concentrated more to the SW, but this day we found them on the NE corner? Once there we got the usual suspects consisting of Amberjacks, Almaco Jacks and African Pomps with the Potroast Sandflea Jig being the shining star of the morning.

Next stop was the grouper grounds. We picked up and took off for the 5 mile move at 13knots and I threw out two high speed rigs. We ended up getting 2 of 3 bites we had, putting a splash more meat in the box.

Then we jigged Peewee's Playhouse. Our guest had never jigged before and the 300-400ft along with the 400g Katana's was a bit much for a beginner, so we set him up with some bait and Zack and I started working the big jigs. Zack jigged the first one, then I got one, then Zack got another. Our guest couldn't seem to get it done with the bait, so I made one drop for him that yielded one more, but insisted on reeling up in the rod holder since it was cheating

Next we took off from Peewee's to find a Jack Smackdown. We didn't put the high speed stuff back out, because we already had gracious plenty in the boxes and I was afraid we would catch more. Zack suggested we could release them. I said who are we kidding, if a wahoo comes to the side of the boat, I know I will kill it, so we just kicked back a rested for a second.

Up on the rock and back inshore on the reef we found a few jacks, including one 50lb Almaco that fought me from the bottom all the way up to the top. He was a great way to finish off the day for me. We cut and ran early in the day to get Zack home to meet his company from out of town, with sore arms and full boxes.

The only tough part of the day was that it was too nice. You couldn't back troll to steady the boat or you didn't move at all, so you had to just drift, so you were at least moving a little. Although there was no wind and less than a knot of tide, it still caused a small amount of scope, which in turn led to lost jigs. But for as pretty as it was, I'll take it every time.

Morning Clouds



Pomps






Mr. Zack with an AJ



High speed action



I even anglered one




This is why I wont ever use circle hooks if I don't have to.



Hole full of groupers



Dock shot


Thanks for reading.
Jim @ Eastern Tackle

[Jesse Lockowitz]

Nice report/pics/boot.

[Ponce]

Nice job guys. I still need to bag an Ap and plan to do so before the year is up.

I tried to call you on the radio, but wasn't sure what ch you were on.

[Sea Draggin]

I tried to call you on the radio, but wasn't sure what ch you were on.

We need to work on Zacks radio a little. When I can't hear Darryl on the Bluewater Lady, something needs some tweaking, because Darryl has one of the longest reaching radios anywhere. I think it mainly needs an external speaker, but possibly one of those signal boxes as well.

[YMMV]

Nice report Jim.

I noticed you used your Saltiga. Did you fish with your 12C?

[paul708]

nice fish.
great pics.
jigs look like they are kicking A$$.

[clt_capt]

Nice fishing - nice report.

I was hearing you guys most of the day - your radio sounded fine. We were north of the rock...

[Sea Draggin]

Nice report Jim.

I noticed you used your Saltiga. Did you fish with your 12C?

I used the 12C on my 200g custom spiral by jpr. I have some really good video of it that I just reviewed.

The 12C is like sex with astroglide. It just doesn't get any smoother.

Out in the deep I was using my saltiga 40 for a little more capacity, with a 400g saltiga rod.

I was hearing you guys most of the day - your radio sounded fine. We were north of the rock...

Yes, our guest had some friends out, so he was using my name for identification, so it wasn't actually me but we were in the same area as you were. Impulse came in from there with 7 sail flags flying. I'm guessing they had a box of wahoos also?

The transmitting is fine, because D said he could hear us fine, it was just the receiving part that was hard for me. I think it can be improved with $30 speaker.

[Custom Canvas]

Jim, thanks for posting the report. how'd the video of my Hookup turn out.. i am excited to see that...

Great write up and enjoyed having you and Jace aboard the parker.

lets do it again soon...

[Sea Draggin]

nice fish.
great pics.
jigs look like they are kicking A$$.

Wait until you see the video of zack busting out a nice jack with that red rod he got from you. You will love it.