- Get them off the bottom quickly.
- Use big enough reels.
- Use strong enough lines. There is no such thing as overkill.
- Use fresh, self-caught bait when possible.
- Concentrate your fishing in 150 to 200 feet of water. In the right depths all rigs will hold fish.
- Fish most of the time on the bottom.
- You have to stick with your fishing. Drinking beer and cutting up won’t work.
- Use big bait, sometimes 1-pound slabs.
- Use 10/0 to 12/0 hooks. It is hard to get enough bait on little hooks.
- I believe in moon phases. Fishing on a growing moon is always better. On a full moon, red snappers feed from 1 a.m. to noon.
- Multiple-hook rigs are not the best rigs for big snappers.
- Don’t move too much. Stay with a rig. You can fish for five hours and not catch a fish, and then they start biting.
Jerald Horst is a retired Louisiana State University professor of fisheries. He is an active writer, book author and outdoorsman.
