I am headed out to Stetson Rock on May 10th. It will be my first trip to the area. I grew up fishing the Florida Atlantic coast, and just bought a Scarab 302 Sport here in Texas. From all the reading I have been doing, the fishing here is different than what I am used to.

Once at the rock, do you recommend trolling or bottom fishing? What should I expect to find out there this time of year (Dorado, Tuna, King, Ling)? If bottom fishing, should I expect AJ's and Grouper and hopefully little to no Red Snappers or is that wishful thinking? I hate pulling up fish that I need to deflate and send back down.

Lastly, I am topping off my tanks in Galveston before heading out. Are there any other recommended areas to fish along the way?

I am an old guy willing to listen and learn and take any and all useful feedback.

I have never fished stetsons rock, but I would imagine that there will be some kings, dorado, aj's, and wahoo. I would troll it with some ballyhoo and drift it with live baits working different depths, put a live blue runner on the bottom for grouper.

good luck
let us know how you do

when I have been out there, we would troll the shrimpers if they were there(small boat years ago). or otherwise chum and bring up the kings, and vermillion snappers, sharks (headboat style)

Thank you. I have been going to the seafood wholesalers around Kemah to ask them to hold back some chum for me. I also heard there is a bait place near TX Ciy Dike to get some frozen block chum, hoo, etc.

What is the best method for getting live Blue Runners? I am thinking sabiki rigs around some platforms.

Yeah, sabiki rigs at platforms will work well. Stetson rock is either alive with kings, wahoo etc or it isn't - well worth trolling or drifting with live bait or ribbonfish, ballyhoo or such.

If you bottom fish, the beeliners tend to suspend higher in the water column than the red snapper do. Also use big live bait at or near the bottom for the groupers & AJ.

You should run into some kings and maybe some Aj's I have not heard of many mahee or ling's being cought yet (the water is still a little cold). You might get lucky and find a few whoo's there. Stetson is kind of a moody place it is eather really good of nothing is home. If you have to fuel you should run to tequiela or the ceversia rigs or even to boomvang(boomvang still has yellowfin and tequiela usuly has alot of big aj's around.


Scott

HA HA HA

Metzger you need brush up on your Spanish..

ceversia and tequiela?


Cervesa and Tequila...


Don't forget the Jalapeno rigs....




-Z-

LMAO..........................................................
As you can see I live and die by spell check and i have not found one on this site yet.

do you need a deckhand

Squidboy, I don't need a deckhand this time, I have a full boat.

I am going to check Boyds at Texas City Dike for frozen bait, if anyone knows of a better location, feel free to let me know.

As far as my ability to make it to Tequila or Cerveza rigs, I will see how things go this trip. I hold 215 gallons and at cruise with full tanks I am getting about 25gph at 35MPH. Hopefully as the fuel goes down the burnrate improves. On the GPS, Stetson is 73NM out of Galveston or about 86 miles. I estimate that is the furthest I want to run, but again, over the course of the day, less fuel/weight maybe a better burn rate I can push a little further on future runs once I get more familiar with everything.

Now I am praying for a good weather window this Saturday. Had my boat blessed in the Kemah "Blessing of the Fleet" this past weekend. I figure it can't hurt.

Tight Lines,
Greg

Please let us know of your succes , We were also planning to head out this weekend to Stetson , but 2 of our crew had to cancel.
So we just got the boat ready and back to Storage. Would it be a chance in the future to buddy boat with you guys?

Regards, Anthony

I just got back form a business trip to Boston and DC. so the report is a little late.

The forecast was not as smooth as they said. At about 30 miles out the seas were running higher than the 3-4 forecast, and with the wind that was blowing they were tight at around 4 seconds. I cannot believe that at 30 miles out I was only in 50ft. of water, that was CRAZY! I knew we were to shallow to catch anything reasonable so instead of pounding the rest of the way out, we decided to go back to the Jetty's and fish. We were loaded with Shad, Squid, Spanish Mackeral. We got back to the jetty's and noticed a lot of other offshore boats anchored up on the protected side of the N. Jetties.

Needless to say, we caught a bunch of little sand trout, a whiting, tons of catfish. No Specks or Reds were pulled in that we saw.

One of the guys complained about the amount of fuel we burned and how we couldn't fish and how he didn't think it was fair to have to pay so much for so little. I laughed and made a mental note that he won't be invited again. Suck it up. We spent all day on the water, nice breeze, good times, we even boated into Galveston, tied up at a restaurant, had lunch and then went back out fishing. And he is complaining because his share was $125.

I would love to buddy boat out sometime. I need to find a group of people that I can call up on a Friday and say the forecast is great, let's go. Obviously planning doesn't work with the Gulf forecast.

Greg

We were out in it on Friday and Saturday, the weather was way better Friday, we didnt see many boats out, My friends 34' Fountain definetly handled the waves ok but we only were able to go about twenty without getting hammered,and one good weedline but with the way the winds were I am sure it didnt last long, we trolled the weedline for awhile but got no hits at all, so we went on to one of our good spots, picked up some trigger fish, and some really good sized Snapper, 18-22 inches, It really hurt watching them swim back down. But that spot produced as it always does, it will be one of the first we hit when the fed season opens.
We didnt want to fight the weather either on sat so we stayed closer in and tried a couple nearshore wrecks, only pulled in a good shark, one red snapper and one Lane snapper.
Maybe next time.....