It is a pretty good bet that 90% of the fish live in 10% of the available water. That makes it mighty easy to fish where there are no fish. Now, all you have to do is find that 10% of the water where the fish hang out to catch a bunch of fish. It’s that simple. (Yeah, right.)

First you have to decide what you want to catch. Grouper are easiest of all because they are well known "home bodies." Pick up a chart of your area. Look it over carefully. Notice abbreviations like "rks," (rocks) or "wrk," (wreck.) Grouper like rocks and wrecks. Good areas to look for are drastic depth changes in a small distance. These areas are worth checking. How do you check a place out? If the water is clear enough and shallow enough, look over the side of the boat as you ride by. If it is murky or too deep, watch your depth finder. Sudden changes in depth may be rocks. Slow down and run back over these places and determine whether the bottom is hard or not. Hard bottom with erratcic changes is generally good for Red Grouper and sometimes for Gags too. Most times, Gags hang out around ledges, large rocks, cracks in the bottom and wrecks or artificial reefs. Red Grouper ! are by far the easiest of all Grouper to catch because they are widely distributed over hard bottom and they will bite about anything. Grunts and Black Seabass inhabit "Red Grouper" bottom and to a lesser extent areas that hold Gags.

I mentioned artificial reefs in the last paragraph. Most are fished pretty hard because they are easily found but they do hold fish. Grouper aren’t so easy to catch on these reefs but other fish are drawn to the baitfish that hang out here. Pelagic fish like Kingfish, Spanish Mackerel, Bonita (Little Tuny), Barracuda, and Cobia are common on these sites. They are easy to catch if you use some of the live bait fish that abound on the artificial reefs. Grunts, Snapper, Permit, Amberjacks, and a host of others will take baits fished near bottom. Live shrimp work well on some of the smaller species but you will hook some critters you can’t hold too. LORAN/GPS numbers are available for these artificial reefs from your area FMP office and in bait shops too.

In past articles I have harped on watching for birds and striking fish. I’ll mention it here too. If you see fish striking, you have found the place to fish. They are there and eating. Birds hover and dive over striking fish, eating scraps of baitfish or those driven up to the surface by the feeding fish beneath. In an earlier article I described how to tell which species is working the bait.

Inshore, look around points, gaps in oyster bars, logs, and creek mouths just as you’d look for Bass in fresh water. When the water is clear, you can often see Redfish and Sheepshead far enough ahead of the boat to get a cast at them before they spook. Trout are hard to see but they hang out along edges too. Casting along shore lines and over grass will work for Trout in Spring and Summer, especially early or late in the day.

Get as high as you safely can in your boat, wear good polarized glasses and a wide brimed hat and you will see more fish. You’ll also see changes in the bottom like potholes, sandy areas, rocks, etc. Most fish like edges. Fish the edge of sandy patches and you might pick up a Flounder or two. Pompano and Permit often follow the edges of rocks and potholes too. Basically, look for differences. Be observant. Take notes if you must and above all, pay attention to the tide. Don’t get caught far up a shallow creek on a falling tide or you might be in for several hours of swearing and swatting sand gnats and mosquitoes while you wait for enough water to float out on. "Been there, done that."