Family might go down to POC or port Aransas area during Christmas break. If my dad decided it was safe to take his 22ft bay boat Offshore maybe 9-10 miles max. What is biting that close to shore in winter?

Do y'all have any tips on what to use, and what kind of gear we will need? I've never been offshore in winter, so I'm kind of clueless about this.

Well, if you stay within 9 nautical miles, you can find some rocks & rigs with red snapper on them.

those rigs,..i found out,..have an annoying horn blast every 5 sec or so,..i was just there..i suppose,its for the birds..or to keep people off of them,.....very...loud!

To keep people from running into them, especially at night.

I was there recently and the jetty fishing was awesome. We fished piggy perch in 30 ft of water and cleaned house on bull reds and a few trout and black drum. As for rigs we've found the best one for us were about 25 miles out. Good luck to you guys. We might be down there too about that time.

I would go to POC, the rigs are less fished. There is one big rig directly East from the jetty that holds snapper (small ones), or you can venture a little SE or NE to find additional rigs that you can hit.

Also this time of year is great at the end of the big jetty for bull reds and black drum.

Do the rigs,farther out,have that horn blast?

Some do, some don't. Not sure why some of them have the horn and others do not. My guess, and this is only a guess, is the ones that are close to the shipping channels are the ones that have the horn blast.

all unmaned platforms have a horn