How To Catch the Best Bait for Grouper and Snapper

Make the Most of Your Trip with Beeliner Tackle

Yes, everyone wants to catch a grouper or three, but you should be prepared tackle-wise to come home with “the groceries.”

One way to accomplish this is to keep a beeliner/triggerfish rig ready on a rod and have someone willing to use it when you get on the right mark. Of course, not all big stacks of bait on the recorder are beeliners and triggerfish but get accustomed to it, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking at.

The target species of the reef complex tend to hang out under the bait stack, like cigar minnows, beeliners, and sardines, to name a few. However, what you are looking for is hanging out at the top of the stack.

For example, the larger beeliners might sometimes be the first taps you get on your jig as it drops toward the bottom. While fishing for grouper, I fish a revolving spool reel rather than a spinning reel for several reasons. The main reason is so I can feel the bait as it drops. If you “feel the bait” on the jig getting tapped on the way down, understand that you’re in beeliners, triggers, or American reds. At that point, it’s up to you to capitalize on that or continue to grouper fish for grouper only. If you choose to do it, you can load up on some pretty tasty groceries by sizing down your tackle. 

I take a 5-lb. box of squid on every trip offshore for several reasons, but this is one of the main reasons. You can harvest grouper bait and dinners deluxe using a small 1/0 circle hook, double tackle, and a 2- or 3-oz. bank sinker. I count the strips it takes to get to the fish, where a multi-colored line can come into play. Drop your bait down to the same color they were hitting, and then start a slow descent.

These fish like to eat bait as it falls. When you feel a tap or the bait stops falling, click the reel into gear and let the circle hook do its work. Just keep them going when you get them working upward in the water column.

If you stop catching them, you’ll see the top of the mark start working its way back closer to the bottom. The school’s top is typically where the larger fish will be, especially the triggerfish. Triggers are hard to catch on the grouper jigs, but smaller circle hooks are deadly on these crafty bait stealers.

I always anchor to grouper/bottom fish. This style of teasing beeliners and triggers up toward the surface only works from a stationary boat, not drifting.

SALTWATER TACKLE YOU MAY WANT TO TRY:

7/0 and 11/0 J-Hook Chin Weights: Target fish include Tuna, Wahoo, Mahi or Common Dolphin, King Mackerel, Wahoo, and more. Easy to rig!

4 oz. Crab Decoy Jig: Target fish for Striped Bass, nearshore Drum, Snook, Grouper, west coast bottom fish, and more.

4 oz. Tuna Squid Decoy Jig: From the eastern, western, Alaskan, and gulf coasts, target fish include: Tuna, Dolphin, Wahoo, Fluke, Flounder, Striped Bass, Seabass, Amberjack (east coast), Yellow Tail (west coast), California White Sea Bass (west coast), Grouper, Snapper, Halibut, Ling cod, and all Alaskan bottom fish.

8 oz. - 12 oz. 10/0 Squid Decoy Jig: Catch BIG Grouper, Amberjack, Giant Stripers, and more.