Hello fellow anglers, December 2020 can you believe we have made it. The last month of the year and Christmas is here. This month I am going to write about grouper and tripletail. This is the time of year I like to troll for grouper it is good table fare and fun to catch. Over the years I have learned to use the boat rods with the clickers that you can hear them over the motors. On my boat rods 7ft. MH action I like to use thirty pound braded line that cuts through the water better than fifty pound mono. There is less mass so that is less resistance while trolling the big lipped lures that are designed to reach thirty plus feet. Most of these lures I can get to fifty feet with the proper length of line and boat speed around five knots. I like to set the drags loose enough to be able to pull it out with your hand while you are trolling along ,this will save it from getting broke off braded line does not stretch it will break if the drag is to tight. The drag is tight enough to set the hook and alarm you there is a fish on, or you may have snagged the bottom. If this does happen stop the boat and let the pressure off the line and most of the time the lure will come free and you can continue your pattern. I like to troll over ledges that have produced grouper before, and artificial reefs that do hold grouper. Depending on the structure you could go North and South, if it is a long area troll over the ledge as far as it goes and turn around and go back. Or if you have a large hard bottom area troll the edges then cross the center creating your own pattern. Mostly you catch gag grouper using this method, but the reds will grab these lures too. If you catch lizard fish you have succeeded in getting it close to the bottom. And next lets talk about the tripletail fish. It is a prehistoric looking fish when you get one in the boat to inspect, and they are great eating. Most of the time when this is dun it is offshore following the stone crab trap buoys. The tripletail will get nosed up to the rope under the buoy, driving past on the boat it looks like a plastic bag caught on the rope under the buoy. When you drive past the buoy and make a u-turn then slow the boat and pull up close enough to cast a rod. I use a live shrimp or a DOA rubber shrimp matching the color of the shrimp at that location. Cast the shrimp just past the buoy enough so as to not spook the fish. Then reel it up close to the fish and stop, letting the bait sink down. Okay this is when you have to wait till you feel the tug on your line to set the hook, not when you think the fish has it. When the fish feels the hook it is game on, these guys are powerful and lots of fun site fish for them. Most of these buoys are in thirty to fifty feet of water. So if you would like to call Capt. Bart to come along on the `”REEL JOB” to experience catching the species, or would like to hire me to go on your boat to teach you how to do this with your gear and boat. Or if you know someone that like to fish and has no boat you can get a gift certificate for them and this would be a great Christmas gift. So if you need to contact Capt. Bart Marx call 941-979-6517 or e-mail me at captbart@alphaomegacharters.com  a phone call gets a quicker response. So always remember singing drags and tight lines make me smile. <*(((((>{