Florida & Georgia - Need help finding Red Snapper

Hey guys I'll be fishing out of Boca Grande next week. I want to go out for Red Snapper. Can you give me am idea how far out I should start to look. I've never targeted them before. Also are they primarily on open bottom. I don't have any numbers for Red Snapper. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Capt. Al

start looking in the 110-120ft range and out from there. Look for hard bottom, just like red grouper bottom. Wrecks, ledges, swiss cheese bottom will all hold red snaps once you clear 120ft. the stuff in 150ft will be stacked up with red snaps. Any hotspot chart number is more than likely already cleared out so you are gonna need to dial up your bottom machine and read it.
Look for fish off the bottom 20-30ft if you start seeing blobs of fish thru the water column you are on the right stuff.
We have not had any issues finding them once you reach the desired depth.
Good luck
Jon
PS.. Live bait, cut bait, threadfins, squid all worked. They are eating anything throw at them. I was catching them on a flat line with a threadfin and squid off the back of the boat while others were catching them on the bottom and just off the bottom. You should find plenty of red grouper as well

Grouperking, you are the man. Thank you very much for the info. By any chance do you have any numbers for sale down this way? I know you sold a bunch up north of me.

Nothing I would sell,
you should be able to find fish just heading W/SW. Run out until you hit the depth, pull it back and start looking around. Fish are pretty thick as in we did just that. We headed in from our starting point due to the 1-2ft seas NOAA predicted and we stopped the boat at 43 miles for a Pee break.. Fired up the machine and looked around and saw some fish pretty far off the bottom. We anchored up and killed it.
I do have numbers down that way but you would really need to be one with your bottom machine to find them if you know what I mean. They are not just punch in the numbers and park you need to find the fish on the areas of bottom. 99.9% of the numbers I sell are punch in and park, those down there are not because I have not spent a lot of time down that way. I have the numbers but I have not put eyes on them, so I am sure they are off .04-.10 depending on what unit they were marked with. A lot of the numbers I have I had to hunt down and get a good GPS mark on.

Thanks a lot Grouperking. You have been very helpful. Hopefully we get the weather to venture out that far. I may have to hire you one day to give me a lesson on how to properly read my bottom machine.

Yeah no worries, that is what I am good at.. Finding fishies

I agree with the info from grouperkng.

When we go out we get to the desired depth we put out a troll spread. Typically a couple lines on the top for Mahi or Blackfin and a deep driver or two. We troll for maybe 30 to 45 minutes while one guy just works the bottom machine hitting MOB at every solid show (like grouperkng indicated). The other members of our crew start cutting bait and getting the bottom rods rigged. In doing this we typically pick up a few fish on the troll but more importantly we get some new numbers in the area. Also when ever we make a move within a mile or two we always troll to that spot, once again to find new bottom.

In your area I would not slow the boat before 130 to 140 feet and work out to 160 feet.

Good luck.

Thanks for the info Capt. Holy crap, I would be so stoked if I caught some blackfin or mahi. Can't wait till next week.