Does anyone have some guidance on lures for snapper (type, color, weight)? I'll be going out from Port O'Connor on a boat that holds about 25 people. The capitan takes us out about 25 miles and we bottom fish for snapper with cut squid. I get tired of the snapper taking my bait and having to reel up and rebait. Is there an artifical lure that will work just as well as squid. We won't be trolling. We only drop to the bottom and wait for the bite.

Thanks,

I have been out the past few years on these charter boats for snapper and last yr I tried a lure called a snapper slapper. Did not have much luck with it but we didnt get into any big fish either. I have seen them catch them like crazy on them on tv. May pick up a few just to try. Bass pro carries them. I know how it feels to reel up 120 feet to re-bait your hook. Good luck.

Snapper slappers are good jigs, but other jigs will also catch snapper. River2sea, diamond jigs etc.

They work better if you tip them with a whole cigar minnow, but if you or someone catches a bonita, try cutting a strip bait about 6-8" long and add that.

It's tough and you won't have to rebait as often.

Go with jigs in the 6, 8, maybe 10 oz range and IMO, color doesn't really matter.

SPRO JIGS work very very well. I caught a few this last weekend using a 3oz SPRO jig tipped with berkley gulp. The snaps would hit the jig as quick as it hit the bottom and the jig did work better with the gulp. We used a snapper slapper and it was not as effective as the spro jig for whatever the reason. It could have to do with the head design, the way the two fall or whatever but I know for a fact that the spro outfished the snapper slapper this last weekend. The SPRO jigs fall flat instead of head first! The snapper slapper will fall head first! Good luck and let us know how you do.

With whatever jig you're fishing, definitely tip it with a sardine.icefish, cigar minnow and allow it to fall SLOWLY down toward the bottom. I have caught some really snapper (10-21 lbs.)doing this since quite a few of the larger snapper will suspend well above the bottom.

Never hurts to try...I wouldn't recommend it around a rig or if the triggers/spadefish are thick in the water column. They'll eat you up.