« Return to About King Mackerel
Fish Transplants
Terry Lacoss
Saltwater fishermen are discovering that a variety of saltwater fish make their homes in unusual places.
It was a calm, late spring day on the water with very little current that offered a super slow drift for the bottom fishing party aboard our deep sea charter fishing boat. After marking the structure, we set up our first drift at an offshore ledge, only eight miles from shore and located in 50 feet of water. Perfect habitat and time of year for northeast Florida gag grouper and red snapper fishing.
Fifty-pound bottom fishing tackle was rigged with eight-ounce bank sinkers in order to drop grouper baits to the bottom in a timely manner. Double were rigged with 4/0 circle hooks and barbed with chunks of freshly defrosted chunks of Spanish sardines—a premiere bait for northeast Florida grouper and red snapper.
“Drop your baits down,” Captain T.D. Lacoss announced. “By the time your baits hit the bottom, our drift should have taken us right over this small offshore rock ledge and hard bottom.”
Eight-ounce weights and their bottom gear soon made contact with the bottom with a familiar “thud,”signaling drift fishermen to engage their saltwater reels and prepare for combat. It wasn’t too long before all fishermen on board were setting their hooks into stout bottom fish. The entire back deck of the Amelia Angler II soon became the scene of total confusion with fishermen desperately trying to avoid tangling nearby lines, while others waited for the mate to unhook their fish and re-bait empty bottom hooks.
Then from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, a five-foot barracuda swam right up to the transom of our boat, just within good range to ambush a hooked fish. However, a much larger fish lurked just deep enough under the surface to hide its identity. The captain was about to get real excited about his client's recent catch.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed one of our clients swinging onto the deck a one-pound blue runner,”Captain T.D. Lacoss said. “It was that one pound live blue runner that quickened my pulse and fueled my pounding heart as I rigged the live blue runner to a wire leader. A split second later, I gently dropped the live bait into the water and began free lining the brightly colored hardtail deep to a certain ambush.”
The large blue runner swam deep, steadily dispensing 30-pound fishing line freely from the deep sea fishing reel, captain T.D. Lacoss placed the rod and reel in a transom rod holder and engaged the reel for combat.
“That big hardtail had barely swam out of sight when it was slammed by a big fish,” Captain T.D. Lacoss said. “I really thought a large shark or amberjack had eaten the live bait as the 30-pound rod bent deeply and was extremely hard to retrieve from the rod holder due to the strength of the hooked fish.”
A nearby charter client was handed the wildly bucking fishing rod and it was “Game Fish On!”
“I guess several thoughts were running through my mind as the charter client leaned into the wide shouldered reef fish,” Captain Lacoss said. “Out here in the deep ocean, you never know what kind of game fish is going to challenge your fishing party. My best guess was that it was that big tiger shark I believe I saw down deep earlier, a large amberjack, or even a 50-lb plus cobia!”
Finally, the hooked fish began to show signs of fatigue, allowing the angler to gain valuable fishing line onto his fishing reel’s spool. And ever so slowly, a large grouper began giving up its identity.
“Man, look at the size of that grouper,”Captain T.D. Lacoss said. “I can’t believe this big grouper was holding just under the surface. This is really an unexpected surprise.”
Soon, the 30-pound gag grouper was placed in the boat’s large fish box, while conversation of the unexpected catch continued among the deep sea drift fishing party.
Certainly there have been a lot of changes in our saltwater fishery during the past few fishing seasons where deep sea fishermen are constantly experiencing unusual catches. While it isn’t written in stone that both game fish and bait fish are supposed to migrate on certain ocean highways, saltwater fishermen are certainly experiencing unusual catches each fishing season and often in the most unusual places.
Southern Kingfish Association member Chad Branch of Jacksonville, Florida, believes there is a unique change taking place in our saltwater fishery. Chad Branch operates Charter Lakes Marine Insurance company and also captains his 36-foot, Mercury powered Invincible tournament boat, properly named, Team Charter Lakes.
“Several of the SKA tournament teams are purchasing live blue runners from south Florida live bait dealers at tournament site boat ramps,” Branch said. “When the time comes to reel in all of the kingfish lines and head to the tournament scales, many of the tournament teams are dip netting their blue runners out of the their live bait wells and dumping them into their favorite kingfish waters. During recent kingfish seasons, I believe this replanting of blue runners has encouraged the schooling and reproducing of blue runners at certain offshore fish structures.”
This may be good reasoning why that 30-pound gag grouper was hanging out just under the surface of the Amelia Angler II charter fishing boat. The angler that hooked and caught the large blue runner was reeling in his bottom rig when that large blue runner took the small piece of squid at a mid depth. When Captain Terry David Lacoss barbed the live blue runner to a wire leader and sent the blue runner off the stern of his charter fishing boat, that big grouper was also holding at a mid depth water depth. More than likely feeding on a large school of blue runners that was suspended over the bottom structure.
A diver discovered a lionfish clinging to a wreck in 140 feet of water off the coast of North Carolina in 2000. Since then, lionfish have been multiplying at a fast rate and can be found schooling at many deep-water fish structures throughout the South Atlantic Ocean and the deep, warm waters of the Bahamas. Lionfish are an exotic specie that inhabit both the Indian and South Pacific Oceans and frequently are sold for aquariums in the United States. A sharp spine sports a powerful venom that causes swelling in humans for several days. Lionfish can grow up to a foot in length.
Large ocean going ships carrying lionfish for sale in the United States wrecked and may have accidentally introduced lionfish into South Atlantic Ocean waters. There is also theory that ships that took on ballast water in South Pacific waters actually carried lionfish in their ballast tanks then dumped them into South Atlantic waters when emptying their ballast tanks to load cargo.
Eric Wettermann deals in selling live blue runners and goggle eyes to kingfish teams at many of the popular Southern Kingfish Association tournament sites. While a few fishermen are contesting that this might be a bad practice to introduce baitfish to areas of the ocean that they believe are not generic to that particular specie of baitfish.
“I have had a few fishermen tell me that this is a bad practice, but very few,” Eric Wettermann explained. “Actually, there are schools of both goggle eyes and blue runners prevalent from South Florida waters to the warm offshore waters of the Carolinas. What a few fishermen do not understand is that schools of baitfish are constantly moving due to a variety of conditions. Strong tides, storms and water temperature changes are major culprits for schooling baitfish to migrate from one location to the next. For example, you can find goggle eyes schooling in the shallow waters of the surf, or in 60 feet of water. Blue runners can be found in 1,800 feet of water.”
Eric Wettermann has been catching and selling live baits since he was in the fourth grade and operates out of Fort Pierce, Florida.
Certainly the migration of baitfish to new waters is producing some very exciting fishing action and many unexpected catches. Exotic species of fish are showing up, too!
