Jigging for GIANT Reef Fish 80 Miles Offshore!

the Gulf Coast of Florida is home to world-class Reef Fisheries join us on the saltwater Sportsman Adventure as we head out 80 miles off the coast of Panama City Beach to fish for grouper and Snapper with Captain Wynn of tail Hunter Charters joining us on this adventure is Nick with return them right who is going to show us how to release reef fish safely back to the depths our first stop is to grab some live bait on our way offshore [Music] good to see you buddy we are dropping these basically a giant saviki right here and we're trying to catch these blue Runners they call them hard Tails as well these are prime bait size too it's not even Giant [Music] thank you oh it's pissed nice head shakes there we go smoke The Jig just bouncing it on the bottom for a while very close to the bottom when we got a bit I like the feeling of that fight definitely like the feeling oh it's ripping drag down good jig bite is fun man I haven't been on a good jig bite in a while now that we got them kind of off the bottom and I'm gonna kind of chill out and just kind of straight crank because you got that heavy jig hanging out of their mouth and if you're going crazy he's trying to fight him like a madman you're just applying more reasons for that jig to come out so he's off the bottom I get to chill now I'm not I'm out of the danger zone there we go we got a floater wow these are out of season aren't they all right well this is perfect for what we got going on today smoke it look at the size of grouper that's beer that honestly could be my biggest gag grouper too that's just an absolute stud man yeah when you pull these fish up from Deep you can see the stomach coming out of the mouth that's from Barrel trauma uh the gases expanding their body and actually displaces organs so we're going to clip this on a sequelizer descending device set to release at 150 feet I had three pounds I quickly put two more pounds on so clip it on the lower jaw see how you can hold the fish up by that and you'll see see how he's floating there and then we'll just send him back with that weight and it'll carry them back down to depth and once it hits 150 feet it'll pop off and hold recompress on his way down so all those gases will go back to their normal State and it'll be good to live by the way guys this is Nick you work for a return I'm right we're actually Florida sea Grant return them right okay well you actually know what you're talking about yeah but I also am an uh Avid fisherman myself so we try to take care of the fish we can't keep so we have more to keep in the future thing came off and then a big thing crushed it I don't know I might just have the head now or something I love him look how beat up he is something big had him in his mouth Maybe get rid of them or keep for a live date I have to push it's bending his rod all right so I just got a very nice size Triggerfish I put in the box I'm telling you right now this does not feel like a trigger fish it's trying to take drags I was bouncing it right off the bottom I'm assuming it's going to be a grouper of some species now Ryan just got that gag you can't keep gags they're out of season have you guys already went over that but it's a big red then then that'll be good but like Ryan said you don't want to go crazy it's kind of just kind of reel them up 230 feet you better catch that bridge let's see what happens what you got Ryan's hooked up on something ain't too bad he's going slow and sick don't want to go crazy come on in all right we got some type of Critter that's definitely bread fish whatever that is yep starting to get color down there it's on another giant trigger it is yeah that's right here it feels like I'm pulling up like a trash can over here oh don't worry I'm feeding the families out here today big trigger oh blow out dude trigger fisherman over here check this out that's a big old trigger fish he's not happy to see us but we're happy to see him these are actually very delicious fish it's just um some people turn their nose out for them because they're actually a little bit harder to clean if you guys were able to feel this skin right here pulling back on it it's almost like sandpaper it's real rough once you get that slime off of it the coolest thing about these fish I don't know if you guys have seen this before I'm forcing really really hard on this thing can't move it it's stuck but if I press this thing it's a little trigger and it'll pull down that fin this guy's delicious he's a little blown up from bear trima but unfortunately for him we're not returning him with the return them right gear we're keeping this guy for dinner Nick is hooked up looks like a good fish nick yeah most of them feel good pulling up yeah yeah it's not really dogging me down I don't know what it is triggers are wild oh yeah so that's all expanded gas in their body they actually released some of it but uh yeah that's a beautiful trigger they experience Barrel trauma as well they do a pretty good job of once they get down surviving better but uh beautiful fish I think we'll keep this one throw it in the box if you wanted to release this fish would you vent or slow descend yeah you could do either um these ones since they're kind of more torpedo shaped if you vent them and get that gas in they're pretty good at going down so if you vent them quick and get them back in the water they do pretty well or you can hook a descender on there and send them down but this one's going in the Box we like to uh either put them on ice or use the device a lot of these offshore fish that you pull it from Deep experience Barrel trauma the gases expand in their body they become bloated and they are unable to swim down on their own so if you release them they'll often float off on the surface and die unless you vent them or descend them or do something to help them survive so we're out here catching fish keeping fish releasing fish but we're making sure we take care of the fish we have to release Rich what you got buddy ah something small again nothing too crazy they're really being feisty today yeah yeah I got it on the vibe look at that guys oh so this uh trigger is suffering from a little fear of trauma but this one is a keeper so we're gonna throw them on the ice coming up over the rails all right so we got it's AJ here on a live bait nice fish they do get Barrel trauma too but this one looks pretty good so we're just gonna get it back in the water quickly here they call them hardtails little blue Runner I'm gonna drop this down as a live bait let's see what we can get I'm gonna take this guy circle hook through the nose circle hooks are essential they will typically get the fish in the corner of the mouth and is now required in the Gulf to use circle hooks so there it goes we got about 12 ounces of lead on here and Captain Wynn will use his electrics a lot of the time big gear you know a big heavy bent butt I'm gonna see if I can't get worked on the hand crank rod the stand up gear Nick over here got that one in the mouth which is always a bonus on the octopus jig we'll have to check if we have our boat limit or not but it's either going on ice or we'll send them home hooked up on the live bait oh there he goes white oh mine's ripping drag too you can't hear it as much this is a strong fish we got lock drag on them kind of got a peer Rod kind of got like an eight foot I just needed a stiffer bottom rod for today and pull that one oh man this fish is Scream and drag get that knee leverage you gain that line back I just got to get him out of the danger zone man he's been taking so much wine get them higher in the water column so he's away from stuff that he can break me off on especially if they come up from underneath it oh the thump was cool that was like I was snoke fishing just literally I feel the bait freaking out boom checking in with Rich yeah my arm's getting a little tired I think we might have a grouper on here it was an extremely light bite and I'm just fishing with a little uh Nomad Vibe and it's only like probably an ounce and a half but because it's a really small profile it doesn't have a lot of drag and on a beautiful calm day like this we just drop it down and luckily get it to the bottom and you know 230 feet of water Giant oh you are another trigger oh no is that what I have with a trigger again yeah I got a fish on too oh you got one too yeah what's that hooks that hooks on the line looks like uh AJ yeah big AJ circling down there hauling The Reef donkeys there we go that's not even that big of an AJ but these guys really fight for their size he choked that Blue Runner down um gave me a good fight and luckily with these guys they don't get better trauma as bad as the grouper so we actually don't even have to um use the descending tool to get him down he's gonna be good on his own but a ton of fun he's got what are the seasons for AJ's right now usually opens up in May but this year it's not opening up until September with gag gotcha okay so they're closed too A lot of people don't even keep them because they tend to get wormy sometimes but a one this size I would typically eat if they were in season it's a nice fish they're a lot of fun man yeah so this guy might be good but he doesn't have any air in them see how it's soft here I don't feel any air in there so he's no tension they can actually burp out some air so they have something called off-gassing with these ones so yeah he shot straight down but amberjack and sometimes off gas and get some of that air out on their own unlike a lot of the Snapper grouper you know this is big enough for not going to the gym for a while click that in make it oh Ron's on a good one too double up oh rip and drag too son big big hit on the bottom I like that I like it when it's right on the bottom man typically we getting them right down there straight on the bottom you have the chance that it's gonna be a real nice grouper so we'll see what this ends up being dude beautiful that is a good sized gag grouper if I had to guess probably around 33 34 inches right there on the The Jig got them with both the hooks right there he smoked it he's loaded floating there so if we were to just release them on the Fortress he would float off and die so we have him hooked up on the descending device and we're just gonna lower him down here so this weight will carry him down to the bottom and once it hits 150 feet it'll pop off all those gases will recompress naturally and he'll be good to go perfect okay rich rich is over here playing with some fish yeah it happened again we're at a small fish eat the lore and I'm reeling them up and then something big ate them keep that truck occupied I'll try my best what were you throwing rich I was just throwing a little uh Nomad vibe and it's only an ounce and a half but because it's so calm and I'm using really light braid hooked up double up again I can get it down to the bottom and a couple hundred feet of water doing the dance doing the dance normally doesn't work with bottom fishing normally you just tangle yourself more firing yourself I felt like a grouper at first now it's actually fighting so it just might be like feeling some Florida heat now [Music] will you stop playing with this fish and get it up try my best oh we got color now deep color oh no way yep that's a good one too yeah that's a huge one oh that's my first one ever yeah holy cow yeah that's what I'm talking about why don't we make a category for that all right guys my first ever African pompano on just this little Nomad vibe and we're just gonna oh we got the pliers here we should pop it out right there and I got the 60 pound Boga so we got a quick weight on her 25 like 24 and a half Ryan was the closest right would you guess 24 right for a closer look there I've been dreaming of catching a fish like this and it's crazy to just get one by surprise like that so cool and they're great eating I guess they're delicious to eat so I'm excited my arms are shopping cook today let's do oh so now I'm the chefs too that's right I'll do it little chunks of them we've got yourself a Bonita there he goes freaking out on you you saw the boat coming for everyone's flying Nick what's going on holy cow Ryan's hooked up yeah man staying tight all the time stay tight on tail Harner Charters no breaks I'm not I'm my fish is in the bottom right got him out got him out oh the technique work loosen enough oh I lost them Heartbreaker I think he broke me off ah you know we came out here for big grouper right we don't have the big grouper in the box yet so we're looking for Big Reds um you know a really big Scamp like an eight to ten pound Scamp would be dope and then hopefully in the afternoon maybe you'll find some tuna or something else but that Africa Pompano that rich caught is what I want to catch right now more so than anything so this is a beautiful little Scamp grouper these are one of the best eating fish in the ocean see that yellow mouth that's almost a sea trout like it's got his little teeth to just hold on to fish but look at the marbling on these guys and they don't get a true broom tail like the South American species but they definitely have an interesting looking tail very broom-like beautiful little fish man gorgeous yo the initial hole on this thing was aggressive now oh it's waiting a little bit now it was started coming up really really quick I'm just getting I'm getting tired hand cracking man I'm getting bicep cramps over here just straight wine and steady tension bringing them up to the surface hopefully he starts floating soon that means it's a big grouper oh big American red huh thank you look at that beautiful American red snapper man these things are very amberjack-like in the way that they fight because they fight you almost all the way up this fish never really started floating his belly was completely out of his mouth when we brought him up here and he's already started to compensate a little bit which is good it's going to make sure that you know he gets back down and gets released because unfortunately as much as I'd like to eat this guy they are out of season right now gotta let them go these are heavily protected fish you only get a short season to keep these guys so gonna get this guy back down with the descending device bam all right Captain Scott he's gonna vent him so right there right behind that pectoral fin bam I don't know if you guys heard that but he just deflated all that air came out those venting tools are very very easy to use now he's able to compensate and let's watch him whoa see that she was very docile until we got that air out of him then he just flopped right out of my hands back down to the depths to be caught another day all right guys if you're headed offshore um you're fishing in depths over 50 feet you want to be prepared to get those floaters back down whether it's with venting tools so this is a commercially available venting tool or using descending device is often safer there's lots of options inverted hook Styles lip grip Styles this is a fish shaver Roy's Fish shaver this is Shelton's fish descender and this is a sequelizer device that you simply pop on the lower jaw of the fish and it releases based on pressure you'll see we used those a bunch today these are all great options to mitigate Barrel trauma they're all available to you or you could make both these yourself at home too so if you're headed offshore be prepared and help those floaters get back down so we can catch them again in the future what'd you get Brent got a nice size uh Scamp gripper right here these things are apparently delicious I've never had one before but all the guys are really excited when we're pulling these up so he's going right there in the Box drop down to a smaller size bait live cigar minnow it's on the bottom for a little bit of time failed to get picked up didn't think it was going to be as big of a fish this thing's pulling pretty good man no complaints but you know when I put the knee up on the gunnel to get better leverage which is this Rod it's uh going to be a bigger fish on us almost red big fatty see that belly again trying to compensate for that pressure change it's sticking out but we're gonna get him right we're gonna get him down back on the bottom swimming around hopefully be caught when it's seasoned and we can bring one of these guys home for dinner [Music] there we go they're clipped into this ending tool bam drop him back down okay slowly going down excellent there we go so that's a three pound weight and 17 pound fish and if we didn't hook that fish onto that weight and we just like put him in the water he just float there yeah he'd be half alive floating and then he would end up dying and we're in what 350 feet yep so this is actually a deep water sequelizer so I have that set to release at 300 feet so we're gonna get him almost all the way back to where you caught him yeah which is great and then it'll pop open release them so we are here at spot number like four or five on the day we already got a cooler full of fish I'll pop that open for you guys right here uh you'll see the scamps on top we got a little one for come popping over right there we got a bigger one underneath um we already got our limited trigger fish as well so we already got a good looking box but we're still looking for some more um maybe some red grouper I think we were talking about going uh trying to get some red grouper a little bit later and a little bit shallower water but we're just seeing what we can get it's a beautiful day out here as you can see and now we're in I think I just checked it's 330 feet of water so we got people dropping jigs we got people dropping live bait we're just gonna see what we can get good Scamp Nick there we go that's what we're looking for it oh yeah beautiful fish that stomach coming out of the mouth circle hook right in the corner all right hooked up on a big mysterious yeah fish here on a blue Runner I was fishing with the little cigar minnows but they kept getting stripped off the hook so I figured you know what let's go big or go home like you said Phil so threw that Blue Runner down there and it wasn't more than five minutes and something munched them and I'm hoping it's a red snapper because I've never caught one before but I'll really be happy with whatever it is because it's pulling hard giving me a good bite your first red snapper all right guys there you have it my first ever red snapper and uh this fish is suffering a little bit from some beer trauma be right there maybe inside its mouth and can also hear the air trying to escape so Nick from return them right he's gonna show us how to use the descending device to get it down to the proper depth where I caught it and then the descending device opens and then releases and decompresses the fish and lets him swim away so talk to me Ryan we are hooked on the Blue Runner bait big big hook up on the bottom big heavy heavy fish man put a real Bend in the rod tough to get cranks in but I try and gain line as much as I can and as fast as I can because there's always Predators down there that want these groupers just as much as I do and we don't know what this is it could be a Big Jack it could be you know AJ something like that but always try and treat it like it's that fish you really want I'm getting tired man we didn't catch the fish this trip my arms are getting sore oh no it might be a black oh look at that that was that big group where you want look just the head is 21 pounds 20 pounds 20 pound head are you kidding me that literally would have been my biggest grouper of any I mean not not including Goliath of all time that's heartbreaking and you know like we wouldn't have been able to keep this fish definitely would have liked to release him but that's the uh that's the reality of when you're out here bottom fishing or when you're just out offshore fishing there's always a food chain there's always sharks there's always something that's going to want these things like you do man that sucks oh that would have been such a big fish oh heartbreaking man heartbreaking all right we just made a run about 20 miles in a little shallower uh how deep are we right here still about 200. okay about 200 but this is apparently more of a red grouper spot so we're gonna see if we can get on some of those uh they're in season right now you just need to be uh 20 inches so we're dropping jigs we're dropping bait let's see what happens so that is another really big American red came up and you can see if you look at the scale the whole fish is really really bulging because it's fighting to compensate for that pressure change see that big belly sticking out of its mouth it's crazy looking man so we're gonna use a different venting device a different descending device yeah so this one since the stomach's coming out you can just go in the mouth then you out the soft tissue then you can kind of hold them up with that device and the key to this one is you just got to make sure the weight goes down first so see how that's rigged and then what you'll do is once it's on the surface here that that weight once you just let it drop we'll send them down I earned it hold them up let me see that thing what that is definitely my biggest red grouper I've ever caught right there red grouper there basically crushing that a little artificial as soon as it gets the bottom I don't even have to dig it to work it to you know give it any action they're just hitting it on the drop pretty cool I would tell you to talk to me but I can't talk [Music] gag King over here this one came in whole I'd really like to take this guy home but the season is only September to December now correct wow that's a short season this is a beautiful fish super fun obviously fight hard I don't know if she's going to show us for you guys you can see those teeth in there definitely a big Predator down there on the reef beautiful fish if you look at that marbling man what's not to like about that that is just a gorgeous animal very appreciative of this fish and saw me fight like an absolute madman that's because we you know we had two fish get Sharks two big fish and trying to catch big red group there's plenty of red group around there but these are going to be a bycatch whether you like it or not so try and treat this fish right we're gonna get him back return them the right way and get them down all right so we got five pounds of weight on there clip that on that's on there good and five pounds should be plenty to get that gag down ready and see it's floating it's down it goes he's kicking too we're gonna keep going with him all the way though and once it gets down to 150 feet pop off and he's free to go we're fishing in about 200 so but he kicked pretty good so we're confident he's going to make it we're all about being a resource for Anglers making sure they know how to release fish whether it's venting properly or descending fish if they're suffering from Barrel trauma when you pull them up from Deep they'll float off so we want to eliminate waste in the fish or at least reduce it the best we can um so you got training online only takes 15 minutes and you get free gear if you fish in the Gulf of Mexico for refish and yeah we're here to be a resource to help save fish for the future so as you can see while we were filming the closing yeah while we were filming the closing of that little uh talking about return them right as you can tell he's a fisherman he knows what he's doing he's got something on right here what'd you drop down this was um a blue Runner or a hardtail as they call them up here yep so we'll see what it is it could be a group it could be a snapper we'll find out stay tuned we're in about 200 feet red grouper yeah well we're filming the clip one last one for the Box it's a heck of a day I'm sure all right thank you Captain Nguyen that was a great day out there we uh got a lot of fish on The Jig and on live bait and if you guys want to check out or book a charter with him we'll have the link down in the description to his website you guys should definitely check him out he knows what he's doing out here he'll get you on some fish no matter what

Channel: Salt Water Sportsman Adventures

Views: 5,964

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Id: rJj2R6Z-gfY

Length: 29min 6sec (1746 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023