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Hooking Up Anglers Since 2011.
The best time to target amberjacks in my region is during the winter and spring and all the way into early June, when the cooler water temperatures bring the fish in close to shore. That doesn’t mean amberjack fishing in July isn’t outstanding, you just have to go out a lot deeper to catch them.
You’ll find the fish out on the metal wrecks--the big ships like the USS Oriskany, the Dolphin Hole and the Ozark Target Ship. Some of the deeper ledges will also hold fish, but the bigger schools will definitely be on the deeper wrecks in the area in anywhere from 200 to 350 feet of water.
You’ll typically mark the amberjacks on your bottom recorder sitting above and to one end of the wreck. Depending on your bottom machine, they may mark as one big blob or individual oval marks, but they’re usually 30 to 100 feet above the wreck. Mark the wreck and the fish, figure out the drift, then put your bow into the current and hold the boat in place by bumping the engines in and out of gear.
The keys here is to deploy your baits to the fish that you are marking, and you do that by trial and error, moving the baits a lot and watching for them to show up on the bottom machine. If you get a bite, you can mark that spot on the line with a piece of string or rubber band, then you can drop to the correct depth to put the baits in front of the fish every time.
For tackle, I like 60 to 80 pound braided line on my reel. I like the braid because it has a thinner diameter, so you don’t get as much drag by the current, which makes it easier to get the bait right where you need it to be. A 4/0 to 6/0 conventional reel is perfect, particularly for the bigger fish. Some guys like to use spinning rods, especially when deep jigging with Williamson Speed Jigs.
Despite their aggressive nature, amberjacks can be very line shy, which is why most anglers targeting them use at least 15 feet of 60 to 100 pound monofilament leader, depending on the size class of the AJ’s you’re fishing, with the lighter leader for the smaller fish. Hook size should be determined by the bait size, but most often it’s a 7/0 to 9/0 4X strong VMC circle hook.
Live hard tails (blue runners) and threadfin herring are the best baits because they’re very active. Other good baits are big mullet, ladyfish or even small bar jack. You want to fish at least two or three baits at a time, because when you do hook up, the rest of the fish in the school get excited and competitive, so you’re likely to get bit on the other rods as well. As long as you can keep a bait in the water, you can keep them biting.
Amberjacks in my region can exceed 100 pounds, but the majority are in the 10 to 20 pound class. Out on the deeper rigs you can usually find some 30 to 40 pound fish, and fish over 50 pounds are not uncommon on some of the spots that don’t get a lot of fishing pressure.
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This Fishing Report was submitted on 7/10/2013 10:05:31 PM by Seamus and last updated on 7/10/2013 10:05:31 PM.
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