How
to Catch Big Snapper
How to Get Big Red Snapper to Bite
EDITOR’S NOTE: While at the Red Snapper World
Championship in Orange Beach, Alabama, that runs from
April 21, 2006 – May 21, 2006, I talked and fished
with Dennis Treigle, the first mate of the “Shady
Lady” charter boat, captained by Butch Tucker
and based at Zeke’s Marina in Orange Beach. Treigle
probably could have been anything he wanted to be. With
degrees in biology and nursing and as a former high-school
teacher who also considered becoming a marine biologist,
Treigle of Pensacola, Florida, is a renaissance man
who has chosen fishing as his profession. According
to Treigle, “I’d spent some time in Mississippi
years ago working with marine biologists there. One
of my professors told me that if I wanted to be a marine
biologist I should plan to be poor. I decided I didn’t
want to be broke the rest of my life, and I also didn’t
want to sit around and do paperwork. I wanted to fish,
be with fishermen and be on the water. I love working
with different people daily. Therefore, being the first
mate on the ‘Shady Lady’ for the past five
years has been the perfect job for me. After teaching
high-school students for four years, I feel like I’m
a better deckhand. I know how to teach people to catch
big snapper. Teaching also has taught me how to communicate
better and how to coach people to catch big snapper.
Most people know how to catch fish, but there are some
fine points I can teach as the first mate that helps
them be more successful – especially with folks
who’ve never fished previously.”
Question: How many red snapper over 20-pounds each
do you think you’ve helped anglers bring to the
deck of the “Shady Lady” during the five
years you’ve been the mate?
Treigle:
Probably I’ve helped anglers bring in 200 too
300, 20-pound-plus red snapper in that time. I’ll
be the first to say that because of Captain Butch Tucker’s
knowing the Gulf of Mexico so well and understanding
where the big red snapper live he puts the anglers in
the spots to catch those red snapper.
Question: What’s the biggest snapper one of your
anglers ever has brought on-board?
Treigle: The biggest was a 36.45-pound red snapper
that was caught last year on the “Shady Lady”
during the 2005 Red Snapper World Championship. We’ve
also put a 56-pound grouper on deck.
Question: What’s the secret to getting a big
red snapper to bite?
Treigle: You never can tell what type of bait a big
red snapper will bite. I think the real secret to catching
a big red snapper is to vary the baits you put down
every time the boat stops. We caught a snapper the other
day using the backbone of a mingo snapper with a whole
northern mackerel. Another snapper hit a piece of bonita
strip with a whole northern mackerel. We’ve also
caught big snapper on big cigar minnows. I do everything
I can to vary my baits so that the snapper has a choice
of what bait it wants to eat. This reason is why I think
the Spike-It tube bait with Spike-It Menhaden Oil sprayed
on it ahead of a mackerel helped you catch the 16-pound
red snapper you took. Those red snapper probably never
had seen a tube bait that looked like a baby squid in
front of the mackerel. That bait looked like that mackerel
was feeding on those tentacles of that Spike-It tube
bait.
Question:
Dennis, what kind of rig do you use for big red snapper?
Treigle: Once anyone gets the bite, he or she has got
to have heavy line to get the snapper in the boat. Except
when we’re fishing tournaments, we’ll use
50-pound-test line like Mossy Oak Offshore Fishing Line.
But in tournament fishing, we have to move all the way
up to 80-pound test to get those really-big snapper
out of wrecks. I like the Penn 6/0 reels, which are
the 114Hs. These bigger reels give you more cranking
power on the snapper. Two of my favorite rods are the
7-foot 3-inch rod, which handles 50-pound-test line.
I like the longer rods, because they bow better than
the shorter rods do and put a lot of pressure on the
snapper. I also like an 8-ounce egg sinker, although
some people prefer to use 6-ounce sinkers, while others
like 10- or 12-ounce sinkers. An 8-ounce sinker will
keep your bait down near the bottom better than a 6-ounce
sinker will, and I just don’t like to use the
larger sinkers if I don’t have to use them. Below
the sinker, I tie as small-looking a 90-pound barrel
swivel as I can get. Tied to the second eye of the barrel
swivel, I use 3- to 4-foot leader that’s 60- to
80-pound-test line. I fish with a No. 7/0 to a No. 9/0
circle hook on the end of the leader. The hooks I like
best are the Matzuo ones, which have very, very-sharp
points. We’ve found after experimenting with them
for the past 3 years that we get a better hook-up ratio
with these hooks than we do with any others. Although
I use the heavier line for tournament fishing, we’ll
often drop back to Mossy Oak Fishing Line’s 50-pound
test after the Red Snapper World Championship ends.
For
more information on fishing with the “Shady Lady,”
you can call Captain Butch Tucker at (850) 380-3321
or write him at 1rct@frontiernet.net. To learn more
about the Red Snapper World Championship (you can participate
for $5 per day), which has a guaranteed payout of $155,000
plus a $500,000 prize for a new world’s record
snapper and a new truck for a new state record snapper,
you can call (251) 981-6539 or go to www.orangebeachsnapper.com.
For accommodations, restaurants and attractions, call
the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau
at (800) 745-7263 or visit www.orangebeach.com.
Tomorrow: Where to Fish for
Big Red Snapper
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