Snapper Fishing Tips

Troll With Baitfish

Daytime snapper fishing demands a boat with a fishfinder and GPS so you can get offshore a mile or two, where these schooling fish like to congregate on the edge of reefs and shelves. This is where the water drops off to the deep. Rig up with live baitfish (ballyhoo are a snapper favorite) on 1/0-size hooks, and troll slowly through promising waters. Use your onboard fishfinder and visit any spots that the old salts back at the dock may have been willing to share.

If you run out of baitfish or don't have any, rig up a feathered jig with a 4-inch strip of squid and troll that behind the boat.

Get a Chum Line Going

When the snapper fishing is slow, the smart angler gets out the chum bucket. Chumming is a nasty business--that produces good catches of fish. Chum consists of fish guts, blood, fish heads, chunks of dead crab and any other smelly effluvia at hand.

The idea is to ladle the chum overboard off the stern while motoring forward, so you get a good, floating bait slick on the surface of the ocean.

Cast live bait or surface plugs into the chum slick and troll slowly while the snapper congregate and begin feeding.

Don't chum too much! You want to give the snapper a taste, but not so much food they get their fill on your chum line and wander away without investigating your hook. A good rule of thumb is to ladle a scoop of chum overboard every 10 seconds. The chum will spread.

Night fishing for snapper

In deep summer, snapper tend to feed more at night, especially in Southern waters around North America.

For rigging, live bait still works best. You can try a few ladles of chum overboard, but there's no need to troll in a wide area because the lights will attract baitfish, and they in turn, will draw the snapper. Rig a glo-stick about a foot from your baited hook to draw even more fish.

Bring plenty of illumination on board so you can see what you're doing. Extra flashlights and battery-powered camp lanterns are essential.

Be careful about the chum line at night, as you are likely to draw sharks into your feeding zone. You may not be prepared to deal with a mako thrashing on your line in the darkness, if he doesn't immediately bite through the line and leave you empty-handed.