FAST GROUPER ACTION FOR SPORTFISHING BOAT "END OF THE LINE"

Oct. 2, 2006, Ric Felder, End Of The Line, Rocky Point fishing, Mexico:

I fished Saturday, Sept. 23, 2006, from Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco) on my boat End Of The Line. I fished with my friends Scott and Heide Roberts.

We caught out fish in water 90 to 100 feet deep using rootbeer colored Scampi jigs and the water temperature was 86 degrees.

I woke up Saturday to almost no wind but due to high winds on Friday we did have to plow through 4 to 6 foot rollers from the south. They were spaced far enough apart so we did not pound but could not make more than 15 to 18 m.p.h.

Our main goal was to fish for corvina and red snapper so we headed to the west to a productive spot to see if we could get some Pacific mackerel to use as bait.

This spot has also been very good for grouper in the past so while my buddy Scott and his wife put down sabikis I decided to throw a rootbeer Scampi down on a heavy rig.

After only 2 drops a large grouper stopped the jig about 30 feet off the bottom, a 75 to 80-pound grouper. I then handed the Scampi rig to Scott so he could try for one.

A couple of minutes later he was latched onto a 90 to 100-pound gulf grouper. We boated that one and repositioned the boat for another drift.

This time it was Heidi's turn for a shot at one and she was immediately hooked into a 60-pound grouper.

At that point we had one nice grouper on board for each person on the boat so we decided to take the 8 sierra mackerel to a deeper reef and try for the corvina and snapper.

We fished the mackerel baits for a couple hours right through a nice tide change with very little fishing action.

We ended up with 6 small goldspotted bass, 2 big stingrays released, and one nice 25-pound pinto bass from that spot.

We headed back to Rocky Point the early afternoon with much calmer seas then we headed out in.

I also made it out fishing again last Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006, with Chuck Blair and again we fished Scampi jigs and got 2 gulf grouper at 30 and 40 pounds and one leopard grouper at 15 pounds. It was another nice fishing weekend in Rocky Point.

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Rocky Point and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Rocky Point may be found at Mexfish.com's main Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco) page.