Art Pina and I were hanging out at Safe Marina last Saturday morning trying to wait out the wind so that we could go fishing. It turned out that the wind beat us that day, but it was still a pleasant morning. Rick Hammer stopped by to say hello and we had a great conversation about fishing for big grouper. I didn’t know it, but Rick was friends with Wally Schmerfeld who wrote the book "The Secrets of Super Grouper". Rick told us something that Wally had taught him that I found fascinating. Wally had a trick for getting rocked up groupers out of their caves that involved sliding a gizmo down the line to “bonk” the grouper on the head. Wally’s gizmo was a ten penny nail pounded through a round flat lead sinker and sharpened on both ends. The sinker was then tied to a loop of heavy mono or wire. If he hooked a grouper and it got stuck in the rocks, Wally would put the gizmo around the line and let it slide down the line to spook the grouper out of the cave. Rick says it works, so I plan to give it a try someday. Amazing!
Rick’s a great guy. The very first time that I ever tangled with a big grouper was on Rick’s old super panga back in 2003 with my buddy Ryan Jenkins. We were tired of catching triggerfish and spotted bass. Back then Rick was the only captain that we knew that would take us out far enough to catch grouper. Ryan and I had caught a few bigmouth leatherjacks (pomano) from shore the day before for bait and we had our 4/0 Penn reels spooled with 40# mono. Rick had brought us to the 14 mile reef and was watching the sonar and working the boat along the drop off. When Rick told us to drop, Ryan and I let our pompanos sink to the bottom and we were both instantly hooked up and broken off by big fish. We didn’t catch a big one that day, but we learned that 40# mono is like cotton candy to big groupers and we were hooked for life.
Rick’s a great guy. The very first time that I ever tangled with a big grouper was on Rick’s old super panga back in 2003 with my buddy Ryan Jenkins. We were tired of catching triggerfish and spotted bass. Back then Rick was the only captain that we knew that would take us out far enough to catch grouper. Ryan and I had caught a few bigmouth leatherjacks (pomano) from shore the day before for bait and we had our 4/0 Penn reels spooled with 40# mono. Rick had brought us to the 14 mile reef and was watching the sonar and working the boat along the drop off. When Rick told us to drop, Ryan and I let our pompanos sink to the bottom and we were both instantly hooked up and broken off by big fish. We didn’t catch a big one that day, but we learned that 40# mono is like cotton candy to big groupers and we were hooked for life.
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