Hey guys I'm new to the forum. I only fish out of POC and this year is the first year i've been offshore since '04. I just now thought i would pull the boat out and have it fixed. It's a 28 ft. Pursuit with twin 200 Merc. Opti-max's. This past weekend some friends and I wanted to get in some snapper fishing and some SCUBA Diving. We headed straight out the big jetties but we didn't find the blue water past 30 miles. Is the water change usually this far out? We ended up spending most of the day tied to a rig about 45 miles out. Caught limit of snapper. I noticed that the snapper seemed to be larger overall than in years past. I'd like to keep making trips out to dive and fish but besided the rigs and the Liberty Ships, I am not sure whate else to head. Any of yall know any good offshore rigs or structures to fish out of POC? Also, i'd like to fish for more than smapper. Any advice would really help me out.

First advice I'm going to give is that you really need to brush up on the state and federal fishing regs. Red Snapper season closed last month in federal waters. If the snaps you caught this past weekend are reds then they're all illegal. You may keep red snapper caught in state waters which is inside 9 NM's. Thank the your lucky stars that you weren't checked by the TPWD on your way in.

Other species you can target are amberjack (bottom), grouper (bottom), wahoo (trolled/drifted), dorado (trolled/drifted). You can also target other snapper species such as lane, bee-liners, gray/mangrove, vermillion.


There's also tuna and billfish farther out.

I'd pick up some gulf fishing books that detail the various species and how to fish and rig for them. Also, go to redsnapperfishing.com and call Rik Jacobsen regarding one of his books. It gives lots of coordinates of proven fishing spots in the gulf.

Thanks Mike. It seems you have a lot of posts on this site. I have been reading around a bit. Are there many other guys from the POC area on here?

Nick, +1 on what Land Pirate said!! Afraid I'm not from the POC area, so I can't be of much help on local stuff ...

I primarily fish Port A. Once in a blue moon I'll go to POC but haven't been in several years. I can't help you much. This year has been really strange in that the blue water has remained offshore. There hasn't been any sargasso weed, weedlines or rips at all, anywhere. It's made for tough fishing for the species that hang around the weedlines. Hopefully next year will improve. I don't know of any guys that regularly fish out of POC.

Earlier in summer the blue water was closer in. It was within 9 miles, I know at least three weekends. Once, it was almost to the jetty. About a month ago, did the area start getting some rain showers? I thought that may have pushed the blue further out. I wouldn't know about true offshore. I mainly fish the bays and jetty.

Lizzy, Land Pirate is corrrect (he usually is) federal waters closed the snapper season on August 15th. I went out this weekend to POC and both Sat and Sunday was stopped by the game warden just inside the jetties. We could have limited out on some big snapper, but we were letting them all go. What I don't understand is when we got to Froggies, there was a boat that was cleaning a bunch of 20 pounders and they said that the warden stopped them and looked at their catch, but did not give them a ticket. I wish I could have kept some of those snappers, but it sure was fun for the newbies on my boat. They could not keep their line in the water and their arms were really sore.

We did end up going about 20 miles out due to the incredible currents at the closer rigs. Found a group of rigs that was SE of the jetties that were holding a lot of fish. We had a school of 8+ lings that came by and everyone on the boat hooked up....must have looked like a circus act on our boat. We boated a few Kings, few undersize groupers, bunch of snapper, some good size lane and mangrove snappers and a 55" hammer head. All in all a great weekend of fishing.

Bleach, sounds like you guys had a good time. I ended up visiting the inlaws in the hill country. Bad because I didn't get to fish, good because I got that trip out of the way. Last time at POC, there was also group cleaning big snapper at Froggies. Once they are back at the jetty, I guess there is no way to know where they were caught. But, I'm hoping that there is a good snapper spot inside 9 miles and that I will eventually find it.