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Venice Inlet and the Gulf of Mexico
Capt. Dave Pinkham
January 15, 2002
Venice - Saltwater Fishing Report
Winter is Time For Bottom Fishing
Brrrrr, the New Year started out a bit chilly for me. Enough of this cold stuff, I'm already looking forward to a blustery spring afternoon. Now I remember why I live down here in South West Florida, I don't like the cold weather. As a matter of fact neither do the kingfish, cuz' more than likely we've seen the last of them till spring.
This cold spell we just experienced must have pushed the Gulf's water temperature down close to 60 degrees or even lower. What this means to us as anglers is that it's time to do some bottom fishing out on the Gulf. This type of fishing is really about as simple as it gets. Basically the way it works is to find some sort of structure on the floor of the Gulf and drop down a bait. If the fish are in the feeding mood, then chances are good if you've gotten over the structure you're going to hook into something.
The other day I was talking to a fella down at the dock. He told me he'd done pretty well with the grouper last winter in the 50' range, as most of us did. It's a well known fact that gags will usually move closer into this depth of water during the cooler months of the year. That is up until a couple nasty cold spells pushed the mercury down in the 30's. After that this fella said he couldn't figure out where the grouper went. He said he figured the grouper must have moved deeper to get out of the colder water. The way I see it, I'd bet if he'd put on some dive gear and went down and checked it out for himself, he may have found those grouper were right there in the same area. In the past, when the water temperature gets real cold like it did last year, I've seen grouper just kind of slow down and quit feeding. Then when it warms up a bit, or a hard charging cold front pushes the fish to move around some, the grouper work up an appetite.
So it may make sense if you're out on the Gulf fishing during a hard cold spell, and you're not getting any decent action in 50' of water to run out deeper. The deeper the water, the less impact the cold air would have on the water temperatures on the bottom. Well, it's worth a try anyway, as long as you have the boat and the fuel to do it.
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