Boatless Fishing Forum, Reports, Info

My friend and I were chasing one of our bucket list and that is the hogfish. We both have not tried it and have never caught them. The targeted species is the hogfish!

Looking at the forecast, it seems like we only have half a day to do it as well. Armed with 5 dozen shrimps, we headed out of ft de soto boat ramp to 15 miles offshore, due to the weather.
In the end, we were able to pull it off. Landed 4 hogfishs and 3 keepers! All of them were caught by my friend. I even dropped down to half an oz and 10# to 20# leader and was not able to hook into a hogfish. I guess it wasn't my day for hogfish but were able to land many good mangos. Also landed a 22" gag grouper. It's truly crazy what we can land with such light tackle.

Here's the blood mess.

Nice haul...dont feel bad,ive NEVER caught one either...but youll get yours...nice report

That is a pile of fish, with a big swing in flavor. I would keep those precious grovers to the side and package the meat by type.
Please tell me the hogs ate old stinking squid.

Nice catch . I know of one local headboat that is using rock shrimp to catch hogs on half day trips. Also might want to try some small blue crabs to weed out the shrimp eaters.

Nice haul! Mangrove and hogfish are two of my favorites.

fishnfool73 wrote:Nice catch . I know of one local headboat that is using rock shrimp to catch hogs on half day trips. Also might want to try some small blue crabs to weed out the shrimp eaters.

Which boat? Is it in S. Fla.? I didn't know headboats ever did anything more creative than chicken rig with squid chunks.

Are u the mr enigma from gotham?

Green Tide wrote:That is a pile of fish, with a big swing in flavor. I would keep those precious grovers to the side and package the meat by type.
Please tell me the hogs ate old stinking squid.

I am Asian, I do not fillet my fish. :-p Just kidding. Yeah, the grunts are for my friend.

The hogfish ate shrimps. We went through 5 dozen shrimps to get 3 hogfish.

HJared wrote:Are u the mr enigma from gotham?

Nope just an old screen name I used 15+ years ago and stuck to for convenience. Besides, his name is Nygma.