What is one thing that you can tell a new boat owner...

[tears143]

to improve his chance of becoming successful boat fisherman?

My friend just got a boat and every time he goes fishing(reefs/wrecks) for grouper, snapper... etc.. he only catches sharks. I went with him today and that's all we caught... We do not know where the reef are and how to catch them. Any pointer would help! Thanks again.

When I go with him next time, I'll give him the pointers and hopefully we'll be more successful.

[Username28]

to improve his chance of becoming successful boat fisherman?

My friend just got a boat and every time he goes fishing(reefs/wrecks) for grouper, snapper... etc.. he only catches sharks. I went with him today and that's all we caught... We do not know where the reef are and how to catch them. Any pointer would help! Thanks again.

When I go with him next time, I'll give him the pointers and hopefully we'll be more successful.

birds, current, objects in the water, ledges, objects on bottom...if I see an object in the water like a big object, i always drop a live bait down near it, to see if there is anything under it. Birds...are a good indication, color change in water (sometimes), weeds.

[gruntking]

staY out of miami and everything will be fyne

[krash]

I tell him first to get a GPS with map chip and a bottom machine (FF).. and also get a good chart of the local area... study the chart, locate a couple areas and concentrate on them.
Stop by the local bait shop, closest to where he launches, and ask some questions about the areas he picked out. Bait shops are rather forth comming with lots of good info, but they are also selling bait so be-aware.

I'd also tell him to take a couple different people out who know what they are doing, asking them in advance for information and suggestions.

Takes a long time and lot of hard knocks to learn bottom fishing.

[tears143]

He have both a FF and a GPS. What do you mean by locate a couple of area on a map? What should I/him be looking for on the map?

I know this forum is mostly boatless but, I only know this forum that have a section on boat and tried searching the net for other forum. Can't find much, so I might as well ask.

We looked for birds and popping fish. We found a school of fish popping on bait and when we got there... they disappear so fast, that we couldn't put down a bait before they disappear.

What should I look for in a depth finder? The number jumping? I am basically clueless... LOL

Point me to any articles and I'll read them thoroughly.

Thanks again for all the help.

[Poseidon10/31]

You might wanna try floridasportsman.com, as they are more boat oriented. Look for rapid depth changes along the reef line, hence where a ledge or hump might be. I don't know what quality FF you're using, but look for areas where there's clutter or rough bottom. You don't want a sand bottom, you want rocks, sea fans, coral etc. You can anchor up current of wrecks and chum to get the fish fired up. I don't fish like this off my kayak but if I try, I can always pull some snapper up by drifting live or cut bait by the wrecks. Vertical jigs have produced snapper, grouper and jacks too. There's too much info on the web, and on the FS website you can find articles for everything you have questions about. If you can't figure out what to do on your own, read reports and mimic what others are doing (bait, depth, presentation etc). Good luck

[Green Tide]

to improve his chance of becoming successful boat fisherman?

My friend just got a boat and every time he goes fishing(reefs/wrecks) for grouper, snapper... etc.. he only catches sharks. I went with him today and that's all we caught... We do not know where the reef are and how to catch them. Any pointer would help! Thanks again.

When I go with him next time, I'll give him the pointers and hopefully we'll be more successful.

First a new boat owner should take a coastguard course to learn safety. They will also teach basics of chart reading and navigating around other boats.
Get a FS fishing chart from BPS and it will give plenty of places to try, but you can also search the web for public reefs both artificial and natural. If you are in central florida right now there are sharks everywhere.
If you are on a spot and the sharks show up it is as bad as porpoise, pack up and run fast to a different spot. You dont have to anchor you can drift the same spot several times watching the ff to see where in the water column the fish are hanging. Different baits different presentations. Fishfinder,knocker,three way swivel,jig heads w/bait. vert jigs.
Changing from 40# to 30 may be all you need to do.
Usually You cant just drive up to feeding fish, the bait get scared and sound and then you have to wait till they surface. you have to get ahead of where they are going and get them when they get close or try large circles around them.

I see plenty of people with boats over 26ft that are happy comming in with 12" snapper. So dont feel pregnant if you take a while to get the big ones.

[crashmister]

to improve his chance of becoming successful boat fisherman?

My friend just got a boat and every time he goes fishing(reefs/wrecks) for grouper, snapper... etc.. he only catches sharks. I went with him today and that's all we caught... We do not know where the reef are and how to catch them. Any pointer would help! Thanks again.

When I go with him next time, I'll give him the pointers and hopefully we'll be more successful.

First a new boat owner should take a coastguard course to learn safety. They will also teach basics of chart reading and navigating around other boats.
Get a FS fishing chart from BPS and it will give plenty of places to try, but you can also search the web for public reefs both artificial and natural. If you are in central florida right now there are sharks everywhere.
If you are on a spot and the sharks show up it is as bad as porpoise, pack up and run fast to a different spot. You dont have to anchor you can drift the same spot several times watching the ff to see where in the water column the fish are hanging. Different baits different presentations. Fishfinder,knocker,three way swivel,jig heads w/bait. vert jigs.
Changing from 40# to 30 may be all you need to do.
Usually You cant just drive up to feeding fish, the bait get scared and sound and then you have to wait till they surface. you have to get ahead of where they are going and get them when they get close or try large circles around them.

I see plenty of people with boats over 26ft that are happy comming in with 12" snapper. So dont feel pregnant if you take a while to get the big ones.

John is spot on here as usual. Big part of boat fishing is boat handling, anchoring, and control. Understanding tides, currents and the effect wind has on them start to point you in the right direction. All of which are covered in basic form in a safety course. I got a lill boat to. I actually had taken the course 30 years ago. At that time basic navigation was part of it. May still be with the US Coast Guard auxiliary. In the end it's no different than shore fishing in the respect that bottom fishing is bottom fishing. Same rigs same bait, but most importantly, spend some bucks on a good fish finder. Garmin makes some excellent models that won't cost an arm and a leg. If you can't see bottom, you can't locate wrecks, rock piles, reefs, and so on. Charts and GPS only get you close, fishing an empty reef or wreck tends to be unproductive. Even marking huge numbers is no guarantee of fish, but your odds are a bit better over an empty spot. Learn to read it and how to work it. I just got the sonar package for my Garmin. It interfaces with my GPS, I just target what I want, it gives me course and distance, with water temp, depth, wind speed and direction, along with a host of other real time data. Florida sportsman is a better location for marine info, but they can be a little, lets say touchy. Do some research in their searchable database. You'll find hundreds of posts with exact info you want. If there's something you don't understand, then by all means ask, you'll usually find a bunch of guys willing to help. Just ignore the trolls.. Good luck!

[tears143]

thanks for all the information guys!

On the boat safety, I am not worry at all. We both have experiences working on a bigger boat and he drives one for many years. He just never have a fishing boat and goes offshore to catch fish. I am not sure if he knows how to read a chart or not but I am working on it. I'll ask him next time and basically tell him to look for those clues on the map.

Been spending a lot of time searching the forums and reading/watching videos, hopefully that'll pay off in the end.

Yeah, all we caught was sharks LOL. Next time, if we hook onto one.. we'll move LOL.

I found a lot of reefs from myfwc website and will be using it to find those wecks and such next time. Hopefully we can snag up some rocks next time. Don't need to be fish, just needs to snag a rock or two, so we can't mark it.

[krash]

On the boat safety, I am not worry at all. We both have experiences working on a bigger boat and he drives one for many years. He just never have a fishing boat and goes offshore to catch fish. I am not sure if he knows how to read a chart or not but I am working on it. I'll ask him next time and basically tell him to look for those clues on the map.

That does not make any sense, well I guess it does in Miami, but opeating boats for years and not being able to read charts.

Some charts not only point out wrecks but alos types of fish that might be caught "Fish Hot Spots"

[tears143]

On the boat safety, I am not worry at all. We both have experiences working on a bigger boat and he drives one for many years. He just never have a fishing boat and goes offshore to catch fish. I am not sure if he knows how to read a chart or not but I am working on it. I'll ask him next time and basically tell him to look for those clues on the map.

That does not make any sense, well I guess it does in Miami, but opeating boats for years and not being able to read charts.

Some charts not only point out wrecks but alos types of fish that might be caught "Fish Hot Spots"

I don't know if he knows how to read a chart or not. I just work on a boat for a few years. He drive one... he probably know it...

[diggin4grouper]

go here http://myfwc.com/conservation/saltwater ... ate-reefs/ and find your county and it will give you the reefs location these are updated every 6 months

[crashmister]

Well, point is driving a boat, and anchoring a boat over an exact spot working with wind and current to keep you there, is a skill all it's own. The basics of which are taught in the course. Finding the perfect spot is a waste if you can't park your boat on top of it. Worse if you can but miss the reef because you can't read wind and current. A good captain can tell you at a glance how to anchor a spot because he's done it so many times its second nature. There's no magic bullet here. It's a combination of skills that produce. You're on the right track, just keep reading. I'm going to try a new deep reef Wahoo technique that's supposed to be deadly. Found it at FS. been researching it ever since. Right outside PE to the north a bit is a huge reef. It always holds fish. If you go South about a half mile or so, you'll find more reef balls. Tie off to one of them and see what you find. Always keep a rod rigged for dolphin. You never know when they'll swim through. For certain fish like snapper you want a long fluoro leader as most snapper are tackle shy. Unless you're James380, you won't catch much with your weight bouncing off bottom. The kind of bait your using is also very important. That's a whole different subject you'll need to research. What you target, and time of year, along with a number of other factors will help you decide which bait to use. If all else fails, head south of Dania pier about a half mile, the charts will show it as the end of a submerged pipe. That's the Dania sewage treatment outflow pipe. You'll see it on the surface as almost an oil slick looking spot. It's fresh treated sewage water pumped off shore. Spot usually holds kings, Cuda, and I've caught macs there as well. The charter boats go there on slow days just to get a few fish in the boat. Not a table fare spot for obvious reasons, but even that spot has been slow lately. This time of year is spotty. But should be picking up soon.

[tears143]

Thanks dig! I got those coords sent to him already. The thing that I found with those coords are when I input it into google earth... I can't seems to get it right... weird... probably need some sort of conversion.

Crashmaister, what is PE?
I wish we were more down south, so we can try for BFT without going out very far. We are in central FL, usually laugh out of cape carn and sebastian inlet.

[diggin4grouper]

Sebastian is kinda reef poor , you either have to run north or south a bit to start getting in to some that are not to far from shore , so what your looking for is hard bottom with pot holes , you will see it on the fish finder and just a little dip but they hold snapper and a few grouper and trigger fish

[diggin4grouper]

Best thing is what I heard on the Weekend while out on Ricky's boat

Quote Adam or Rory?>>

Best boat is your friends boat

<<End Quote

LMFAO

yea because all you have to do is pay for gas , bait , and beer

[diggin4grouper]

Thanks dig! I got those coords sent to him already. The thing that I found with those coords are when I input it into google earth... I can't seems to get it right... weird... probably need some sort of conversion.

na no conversion but you have to enter it a way it knows i try to explain it

here is one off the site i gave you

ST. LUCIE WAAS 22 61 991 TONS OF SECONDARY CONCRETE, 3 &4 2 OF 4 DEPLOYMENTS THIS GRANT 2 DATES, ALSO 5/18/2011 80 10.371 27 31.632 991 CONCRETE CULVERTS (300) 2011 REEF-02 05/20/2011

ok when you go to enter it in to google earth this is what you have to do

the 27 31.632 go first but now you have to mod it a bit so that it looks like this +27°31.632
and the other number will look like this -80°10.371

so now you have +27°31.632 -80°10.371 and that will be a reef off Jensen beach

now to get the ° symbol this is how you get it hold the alt button and press 2 4 8 on the number pad

[tears143]

Thanks dig! I got those coords sent to him already. The thing that I found with those coords are when I input it into google earth... I can't seems to get it right... weird... probably need some sort of conversion.

na no conversion but you have to enter it a way it knows i try to explain it

here is one off the site i gave you

ST. LUCIE WAAS 22 61 991 TONS OF SECONDARY CONCRETE, 3 &4 2 OF 4 DEPLOYMENTS THIS GRANT 2 DATES, ALSO 5/18/2011 80 10.371 27 31.632 991 CONCRETE CULVERTS (300) 2011 REEF-02 05/20/2011

ok when you go to enter it in to google earth this is what you have to do

the 27 31.632 go first but now you have to mod it a bit so that it looks like this +27°31.632
and the other number will look like this -80°10.371

so now you have +27°31.632 -80°10.371 and that will be a reef off Jensen beach

now to get the ° symbol this is how you get it hold the alt button and press 2 4 8 on the number pad

Thanks that really help a lot!

[gdm phil]

2 words...
sea tow



its not if you need it, its when you need it

[tears143]

2 words...
sea tow



its not if you need it, its when you need it

He have it! Thanks.

I know what you mean by it's not if you need it... but "when" you need it. Crossing finger that we'll never need it.

[gdm phil]

2 words...
sea tow



its not if you need it, its when you need it

He have it! Thanks.

I know what you mean by it's not if you need it... but "when" you need it. Crossing finger that we'll never need it.

for the low monthly cost its well worth it

[diggin4grouper]

2 words...
sea tow



its not if you need it, its when you need it

we have towed a few people in , one theses guys went and bought a boat and listened to the owner as he said it was ready to go , it wasn't they got out about a mile and the motor died , we were on anchor and thought they were drift fishing as they drifted away from us and about an hour later we kept hearing a faint horn and then they were flashing a flash light , we said if they popped a flare that we would go get them as they were pretty close to a sand bar and would be grounded for the night , they popped the flare and we get over to them and the wires on the motor are completely melted off the motor and the battery cable are melted to the boat , we got them about 50 yards from the boat ramp and Martian county sheriff finally shows up and harasses us about we should have a vhf on the boat so we could have let them know we had the boat in tow , as there were 3 calls to 911 for the flare ..

[Green Tide]

hi my name is ron

sorry for the large photo