Grouper Fishing Tips

How To Catch Grouper

Groupers are found in almost all temperate and tropical seas, usually over hard bottom. Some species of grouper prefer shallow water, while others inhabit deep, dark regions far offshore.

How To Catch Grouper

The variety of methods for catching grouper include deep jigging, deep live baiting, wreck and reef fishing, deep trolling, chumming patch reefs and even bridge fishing. Grouper are usually not very finicky. If you find them they usually will bite. But, set the hook hard, and keep the fish headed for the boat, or he will take you right into a hole.

There are more tips and secrets to catching grouper. Here is a collection of some of those grouper fishing tips. Please browse around and enjoy our grouper fishing tips. If you have a grouper fishing tip you would like to share please comment below.

  • Selection of bait is important. Squid with long tentacles, whole cigar minnows, and fresh strips of bonito, or live fish such as pinfish or tomtates catch the big groupers.
  • A rod with a lot of backbone, a reel with the ability to crank down an extra hard drag, and 60 to 80 pound test line are the usual equipment on a bottom fishing trip for grouper.
  • You will often need to apply a lot of pressure to keep the fish from retreating to cover or remove them from the same.
  • Use heavy duty spinning reels with 30# to 50# test line.
  • Bottom fish with live bait, and pinfish are preferred over most other baits.
  • Be prepared with several types of baits to deal with the finicky feeders. Live baits (mullet, pinfish, grunts, bluerunner, ballyhoo). Dead baits (same as above as well as squid and various chunk fish). Artificials from large spoons and hard bodied lures to large jigs all work.
  • If you are bottom fishing you will need heavy weights from 4 oz to 1 lb depending on the current. Down riggers can help.
  • Trolling with deep diving lures while following a ledge or rock pile. Choose a red and white or chartreuse for these diving lures.
  • Sturdy hooks in the 5/0 to 8/0 range are a must.
  • The Southeastern United States provide the best grouper fishing in the world.

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