Boatless Fishing Forum, Reports, Info

Anyone have tips on catching grouper candy aka sand perch? Also, anyone care to share some bait spots? Looking to catch bait anywhere from the upper keys to the middle keys. I'm going to my favorite bridges in the middle keys next week and want to have good live bait with me.

Thanks in advance..

Check any grass flats for nice sized pinfish, small grunts, they will hit a variety of live baits. A nice pilchard or threadfin would also work.

Grass flats you can almost guarantee live pins.

Chevy Juan wrote:Check any grass flats for nice sized pinfish, small grunts, they will hit a variety of live baits. A nice pilchard or threadfin would also work.

Grass flats you can almost guarantee live pins.

Thanks Juan. I use to have a few spots to cast net for pilchard, but I haven't seen any bait in those spots in years and the other spots no longer exist. Wish I could find another spot to cast net....

I hear ya man. Usually you don't have a problem getting a ton of live pilchards off the bridge with a sabiki but lately the bait just hasn't shown up. Every now and then you will see a school come throug like John said he saw a school of Spanish sardines I believe not long ago so you could get lucky.

At night we drop a lantern and wait till you see the bait huddle around the light and you can rack up in no time. I throw a bunch in the live well to use live and a bunch in my fish cooler to use as fresh dead chunks.

I will tell you this though, I've been doing good on live shrimp as of lately and the shops are still carrying nice sizes so it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a couple dozen on hand since its not expensive either, wouldn't hurt.

Chevy Juan wrote:I hear ya man. Usually you don't have a problem getting a ton of live pilchards off the bridge with a sabiki but lately the bait just hasn't shown up. Every now and then you will see a school come throug like John said he saw a school of Spanish sardines I believe not long ago so you could get lucky.

At night we drop a lantern and wait till you see the bait huddle around the light and you can rack up in no time. I throw a bunch in the live well to use live and a bunch in my fish cooler to use as fresh dead chunks.

I will tell you this though, I've been doing good on live shrimp as of lately and the shops are still carrying nice sizes so it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a couple dozen on hand since its not expensive either, wouldn't hurt.

Thanks for the good advise brother. You plan on heading down next week?

The only bridge I ever caught them on realizably was Niles and its closed now.

I've gotten a bunch of them at No Name too.

Thanks for the input guys.. I guess I'm gonna have to try every bridge from key largo to marathon.

There has to be some docks or structure somewhere that is holding bait. I just have to explore and hopefully not get kicked out of the docks. Lol..

For the sand perch, my experience is that the only bridges you'll catch them on down there are ones that are surrounded by grass flats, and the bridges are the only structure around. I wouldn't waste too much time trying to get them...get some good size, frisky pinfish instead, and move around and fish as many pilings on as many different bridges as you can, if you really want to have a shot at a keeper grouper. I have no doubt there are some there, I got rocked under the pilings by a couple nice ones last weekend that I never saw but were good sized fish, and pulled out several 18-20"ers.

PhishingPhanatic wrote:For the sand perch, my experience is that the only bridges you'll catch them on down there are ones that are surrounded by grass flats, and the bridges are the only structure around. I wouldn't waste too much time trying to get them...get some good size, frisky pinfish instead, and move around and fish as many pilings on as many different bridges as you can, if you really want to have a shot at a keeper grouper. I have no doubt there are some there, I got rocked under the pilings by a couple nice ones last weekend that I never saw but were good sized fish, and pulled out several 18-20"ers.

Thanks for the info bro. Will definitely take your advice. I still want to find a school of pilchard to cast over of.

PhishingPhanatic wrote:get some good size, frisky pinfish instead,

when you say good sized what do you mean....3-4" or hand sized...i can never get the candy sized ones in the bay

I also get a lot of my bait from the grass flats around card sound as well since I live so close there

there"s a spot off singer island that holds tons of pins

gdm phil wrote:there"s a spot off singer island that holds tons of pins

The only singer island that I know of is up in north palm beach. Correct me if I'm wrong...

GrillN wrote:

gdm phil wrote:there"s a spot off singer island that holds tons of pins

The only singer island that I know of is up in north palm beach. Correct me if I'm wrong...

yea thats it

gdm phil wrote:

GrillN wrote:

gdm phil wrote:there"s a spot off singer island that holds tons of pins

The only singer island that I know of is up in north palm beach. Correct me if I'm wrong...

yea thats it

Cool. Next time I'm up that way, I'll look for bait around singer island.

Anyone else care to share some possible bait spots? Leaving tomorrow at 4am to look for bait and then fish the middle keys...

Sorry I took so long but I just found a nice spot for nice sand perch the bridge coming into the keys there are plenty around there there are normally pins all ovr there too but like the other bait the pins down here playing hard to get at least the nice small ones did find some pins stacked up the other day but they were on the bigger size. I will be getting about 3 dozen perch today to see what I can get. I think the bite will be hot tonight