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February Offshore Sheepshead and Gags
Capt. Zachary Hoffman
February 7, 2014
Homosassa - Saltwater Fishing Report
Today was not exactly the perfect weather day to go offshore, but after moving our trip two times we decided to stick it out and see what we could make happen. We started the day out at MacRae's in Homosassa where we got 200 live shrimp and a few packs of the frozen stuff for chum. After we loaded up the boat we headed out to 15 feet of water down south of Homosassa channel and hit some ledges, the first few spots really produced some quality Sheeps so we stayed in that depth range till about 1 in the afternoon. We were chumming our spots with some of the nasty frozen shrimp and using simple knocker rigs with about 4 feet of 30-pound leader and little circle hooks tipped with half a shrimp. After we got as many Sheeps as we wanted to take home we decided to head out to some deeper water to play with some gags and hopefully get a lost red grouper in 35 feet of water. In 35 foot we came across a few large schools of sea bass and grunts, they were mostly small but we were still able to fill the box with some decent size fish, while catching some 22-26 inch gags on light tackle while we were messing with the little fish. The good ole Stradic 4000 landed our biggest gag of the day, which was about 28 inches, not a monster fish, but considering we worked it out of a rock 2 times, I would say it was a respectable accomplishment on 10 pound test. Around 3 the weather started to get even worse so we shot back to the hill at a comfortable 24 knots in 4-foot seas (got to love world cats.) I heard some decent reports from other captains who stuck it out and fished inshore today, Captain John Hamilton got some nice trout on fly, and Capt. Kyle Messier did pretty good in the river over in Crystal river.
Homosassa Fishing Forecast:
Fishing is great right now, look for the good weather days and get out there soon, this is a unique time of year and the sheepshead bite will be over before you know it.
Target Species:
Sheepshead Grouper Trout
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