Fishing gear for Bimini / S Florida

[Bruce]

Last year we enjoyed catching and eating a few fish in Bimini on our under equipped boat.

We particularly enjoyed the yellowtail snapper last year. This year I am hoping to fish deeper for some larger yellowtail and small grouper.

I think I may take some of this chum product to draw the larger snapper to the top. http://aquaticnutrition.com/Baitshop/professional-fishing-chum-c-33/yellowtail-snapper-chum-p-88.html

This chum may be a better deal http://shop.fishchum.com

Last year we took the kids pond fishing gear with 4 pound line and I picked up a $40 rod, reel and hooks combo with 15 pound line at West Marine.

I have plans to add two rod holders to the stern of our boat.

I have a birthday coming up and @Rana and the kids are asking what they can get me. I do not have experience or preference in brand or type equipment. So what do you recommend for rods, reels and other fishing equipment?

Also does anyone have a recommendation on a small bait box or bait ice chest? Last year I got in trouble for storing squid in the boat fridge. It seems that no matter how hard I try it is near impossible to keep all the squid smell inside the bag!

Thanks

 

[Bruce]

I am thinking about a couple of Penn Pursuit II 6000-2 Piece Spinning Combo, 8-Feet/Medium-Heavy for Yellowtail and a Penn Pursuit II 8000-2 Piece Spinning Combo, 10-Feet for Grouper.

 

[waterboy]

I am very curious to see what you come up with. I went the cheap route like you last year. We bought several cheap rod/reel combo's at Wal Mart last year with 15-20 lb line on them. We tore up the Trigger's by going to the 100 ft line and dropping our line to the bottom using squid. The el-cheapo equipment performed very well.

This year, I would like to get slightly more serious but not too much. I might check out your chumming bait too!!!

I will stick with the rod/reel's I had but want to come better prepared to put some food on the table. I would also like to expand what we caught and find your honey hole for the yellowtail and grouper.

 

[Bruce]

@waterboy, did you eat the triggers? We ate one Queen trigger. The meat was good but difficult to fillet and everyone preferred the Yellowtail.

We caught a mixture of small yellowtail and grunt at a rate of perhaps twenty per hour in 15 feet of water near Three Sisters. We kept the six biggest fish that we caught which I would have guessed averaged around a pound. I was simply putting about a third of a squid on a hook, casting out a little and letting it sink. I would have a fish on within a minute or two. I saw the Queen trigger swimming under the boat and caught it fishing straight up and down.

I want to try chumming in deeper water for yellowtail this year. If I don't have luck catching bigger ones then we will go shallow again for the little ones and decapitate, scale and gut them like trout.

 

[waterboy]

No we didn't eat any as I didn't really come prepared to. We got advice to out to the 100 ft deep mark and go to the bottom. We dropped 3 lines in the water and had 3 fish on immediately. We would hit them every cast that way until we drifted to shallower water. I would motor back to 100 ft and it was game on again almost immediately. Triggers only though, Queens and Grays.

As you said, I am going to make sure my filet knife is sharp. We'll be eating the Triggers for sure but would love to add some Grouper to the mix!!!

 

[Bruce]

I had to use a serrated knife to saw through the queen triggers skin.

What were you using for bait?

 

[waterboy]

Bought a box of squid, already cut up for our convenience into about 1 inch slices.

 

[waterboy]

Sounds like what you need for your birthday is to hire a guide for a few hours

 

[Bruce]

This guy makes cleaning the triggers look easy

 

[Julian]

I'm sure there are some folks from Florida that can weigh in with more detailed info (going from 5 year old memory when fishing off my brothers Grady White). We would go shallow and use a multi hook bait catching setup to catch pin heads for bait (we also used throw nets for this). Then we'd go deep (100-150') to mounds or wrecks off Tampa and use the pin heads on heavy Penn deep sea rods (I can ask him what we were using). We'd drop down to the bottom with a heavy weight and then raise the weight 5-10 feet from the bottom. The live pin heads are rigged to be 2-3 feet beyond the weight. Using the bigger live pin heads means you catch bigger fish.

 

[Julian]

Some good thoughts here: http://www.howtocatchanyfish.com/grouper.html

 

[Andy S]

@Bruce from our experience it seems June in Bimini is a miserable month to catch any decent fish. In 2014 all the big fishing boats weren't catching anything but small yellow tails and trigger fish just like us in shallow water. Our boat had purchased a couple of boxes of chum at the gas stop in Fort Lauderdale. All the chum did was bring the yellow tail and trigger fish to the surface it didn't attract any other fish, my thought is there was nothing else in the water. In 2013 when @upperdeck with @timh on board they caught black tail tuna and a wahoo that was done in mid-July and I believe they were trolling with medium deep sea rigs and cedar plugs.

 

[upperdeck]

And trolling fast! at least compared to Lake Michigan speeds, which are about 1.5 mph. Salt water trolling is about 7 or 8 mph and wahoo like to hit on even faster baits. Our best luck were with skirts and cedar plugs, especially cedar plugs. My favorite is scarred with teeth marks!

 

[kthrash]

I bought a couple of Penn Battle II 6000 combo rods to take with me.. and am installing some rod holders as well..

I may bring along a few other lighter weight rod/reels as well.

 

[Bruce]

@kthrash, Did you see Penn's free drybag offer? I believe you qualify https://basspro.scene7.com/is/content/BassPro/99_PDF/Rebates & Free Offers/FreeOffer_14-10095PENNDrybag-0715.pdf

 

[kthrash]

I bought mine outside of the purchase window.. dont qualify..

 

[Bruce]

Big Game Club has released a Bimini Fishing Calendar rating the quality of fishing per month for the various species.

Broadbill Swordfish, Blackfin Tuna, Oceanic Bonita, Bonefish, Grouper, Snapper and Barracuda should be at their peak during our July trip.

 

[kthrash]

@Bruce I ended up qualifying and got 2!

 

[upperdeck]

I love that dry bag. Very nice!

 

[tim h]

@Bruce I ended up qualifying and got 2!

Me too !!
I also got the dry bags.
When I purchased my Battle II's I got in on the $20 rebate for each combo from Gander Mt. as well.