Three Tips for Catching Grouper on Jigs

Just about everyone loves catching – and eating – grouper. But for most folks, grouper fishing means bait fishing. Those looking for a more hands-on approach with artificials, however, will probably get a charge out of jigging for grouper.

Grouper will utterly slam a spoon jigged just off the bottom, and jigging allows you to use much less weight as opposed to dropping down a “meat curtain” rig with a lead weight. Net result? You can fish for them with gear that’s far more appropriately sized to the fish. Ready to give it a shot? Here are three tips that will help you jig up more grouper.

1. Keep the jig moving at all times, with no exceptions. A jig sitting there looking like a dead chunk of metal doesn’t get hit.
2. When you swing your rod tip up to give the jig motion, start with the tip down close to the water and jig up to 90-degrees. Keeping the tip low while working the jig means you’ll always have a wide range of motion available to you to set the hook and quickly pull the fish up out of structure. But if your rod tip is up high when the fish strikes, you’ll be high-sticking and will have to crank down before maximizing the pressure you can put on the fish.
3. Use single, dangling hooks. If a jig comes with a treble hook already on it, swap it out. This is more a matter of avoiding snags than catching fish, but if you snag all the time you’ll lose fishing time to re-rigging. And in the craggy, snaggy areas where grouper love to prowl, a treble hook usually doesn’t take long to become fouled.

BONUS TIP: The moment you get a grouper on the line, push it to the envelope to get the fish five or 10 feet of the bottom. Otherwise, the fish will try to dart to structure for cover and often will chaff or tangle the line.