I recently moved to Houston area with my 22ft hydra sports Cuddy cabin set up for off shore fishing with about a 3-400 mile range. I am hoping y’all can fill me in on the in’s and outs of saltwater fishing off Freeport, Galveston or any other recommended areas I’ve done a lot of tuna fishing and would love to keep that up, how far do you have to venture to get into tuna, dorado and AJs? What kind of gear, bait and lures are mostly used out here? Do you typically jig for your own bait? Thanks in advance!

Matt, deeper water is out of Freeport than Galveston. To get to decent tuna grounds, you'll need to start at the floaters (two floating rigs- Nancen and Boomvang). They're about 120-140 miles from Freeport. Hoover is another 25 miles farther.
AJ's can be had in any water 150 feet or deeper but that's 50-60 miles out as well. Rigs like Cerveza are right on the edge which starts to drop from 300-700 feet of water. A rig that used to be there, Tequila, still has the legs standing and it's in 700 feet of water. Those rigs are good for wahoo, dorado, the occasional sailfish and AJ's as well as big grouper. In the summer, when the shrimp boats are working in 300 feet of water, blackfin can be had against the shrimp boats.
Chicken dolphin can be in as close as 20 miles if you find a decent weedline or something floating. I'd be glad to show you some decent spots to start. Just keep in mind, that weather windows are extremely important in the gulf as it can turn nasty and dangerous really quickly, especially in a smaller boat.
As far as bait, we typically jig or chunk for blackfins, throw Halco swim baits for yellowfin, jig for AJ's (or use big live baits you can sibilki from a rig) and troll for wahoo or dorado or bill fish. If you have electric reels, tilefish are pretty easy to target in 700-1200 feet of water.

I appreciate the info, once I get my feet set on a few trips I’ll let you know if I have space open on my ride.

To the TFF!

Leave out of Freeport. Get Riks books and learn to use your gps and electronics.
Hard bottom looks different on all depth finders. Learn how to find hard bottom and rocks. Tuna are far out off of Freeport but there are lots of fish to be caught closer in.
Kingfish,ling, Snappers, and Dorado.

we are hoping to do a 48 hour trip next week if the weather allowes us.. im sure our captain knows the answer to this but im not finding info on amberjack? are they in season ?

Yes, for the month of May

Many years ago,friends and I fished several times in Freeport with Captain Elliott, several times we did 12 hour trips only to figure out we were riding 8 hours to and from, fishing 4 hours,we talked to Elliott and got 36 hour trips going on the Nancy Ann with Captain Brian Ford, we would go out 70 plus miles and wear the amber jacks out,actually the amberjacks wore us out,Freeport was a great place to go offshore, many,many stories..Bump