Capt. Brad Phillips, of Fish Spanker Charters
out of Carolina Beach, and Fisherman's Post
Newspaper's Gary Hurley with a gag (caught on
a ledge), a red (caught on live bottom) and a
dolphin hooked on the light line using a dead
cigar minnow.
Noting the bent double rods to my right and left
and the strained grunts of the anglers wielding
them, I realized that we’d found the grouper,
and that it was time for me to change baits. As I
replaced the cigar minnow I’d been sending to
the bottom with a piece of cut grunt, I heard the
distinct thumps of fish hitting fiberglass and
turned around to see two fat red grouper
flopping on the deck, and two wide grins on the
faces of Capt. Brad Phillips and Fisherman’s
Post Publisher Gary Hurley.
The grunt chunk wasn’t on the bottom for 5
seconds before I hooked up with a grouper of
my own and struggled to pry the red away from
its live bottom home. Hurley and I had been
itching to catch some grouper for months, and
we’d finally worked in a trip with Phillips, who
operates the aptly named Fish Spanker
Charters out of Carolina Beach.
We arrived at the Carolina Beach boat ramp at
6:00 that Friday morning to find Phillips waiting
for us with his McKee Craft Freedom 22
(purchased at Saltwater Marine) tied up at the
dock. After we hopped on board, Phillips
throttled up the 250 hp Suzuki four stroke
outboard and guided the boat out Carolina
Beach Inlet. My anticipation rose along with the
sun as we headed east toward Phillips’ first
spot, a crack in the bottom about 40 miles off
the beach.
Throttling the boat down as we neared his GPS
numbers, Phillips circled the area and watched
the depth finder like a hawk while Hurley and I
spotted flying fish skipping across the wave
crests.
“There’s something down there. See that—that’
s not bait,” Phillips said, gesturing to the
orange marks hugging the bottom on the color
scope. After anchoring the boat, Phillips cut
squid and cigar minnows in half. He told us to
bait up with those first.
“Even elephants eat peanuts,” he explained.
“Really though, we hold off on the big baits until
we’ve got a chum line going down there. When
I say chum line, I’m talking about when the little
fish start pecking at the baits. It creates a cloud
that brings in the big fish from other parts of
the reef and gets them feeding.”
Our first spot produced only grunts for the bait
bucket—triggerfish and a few pinkies (red
porgies)—so Phillips decided to move on after
around 15 minutes. “Sometimes I’ll stay
longer—it all depends on what we’re catching.
If we’re losing baits and I feel like there are
grouper there, I’ll wait it out.”
Phillips’ chum line theory was proven correct at
the live bottom area he anchored on next. After
dropping the half squid and cigar minnows a
few times, Phillips recommended we bait up
with chunks of grunt. He and Hurley did so,
while I chose a whole cigar minnow, reasoning
that I’d caught grouper on them in the past.
When they both hooked up with our target
species while my bait was pecked apart, I
cranked my rig to the surface as fast as
possible to switch baits.
After those first three grouper, it was a rare
moment when one of us wasn’t leaning back on
a rod and trying to muscle a grouper away from
the structure. Speaking of rods, Phillips’
grouper outfits consist of long, 7-8’ original Star
rods with 4/0 Penn Senators. “The longer rods
give you more leverage when you’re trying to
get that grouper the first 10 ffet off the bottom,”
he said, “It’s all about that first 10 feet.” The
long rods also enable anglers to move much
more line when setting the hook, as compared
with a 5.5-6’ stand up rod.
Phillips’ rigs are very simple. He spools his
Penns with 80 Berkeley Big Game Mono, and
ties his rigs at the end of the mainline. He does
so with no swivel or unnecessary knots. Two
foot long loops spaced several feet apart make
up the hook leaders, and a third loop tied at
the end of the line holds the sinker.
When the bite slowed down, Phillips would let
out a few more feet of anchor line, placing us
on a slightly different part of the structure, and
generally, we’d hook a couple more grouper.
Proper anchoring is absolutely vital to
successful grouper fishing, as the fish will not
go far from structure to have a meal.
“Both the wind and the current are going to
push the boat when you’re tightening up on the
anchor line and you’ve got to adjust for that,”
Phillips explained to us. “The wind and current
are going about 90 degrees against each other
today, so with a west wind, the current’s
pushing us a little bit to the north. That’s why it
can take a couple tries to get set up right on
the bottom.”
Capt. Brad Phillips (right), of Fish Spanker
Charters out of Carolina Beach, and Max
Gaspeny, of Fisherman's Post, with a handful
of red grouper caught about 40 miles off the
beach on cut bait.
out of Carolina Beach, and Fisherman's Post
Newspaper's Gary Hurley with a gag (caught on
a ledge), a red (caught on live bottom) and a
dolphin hooked on the light line using a dead
cigar minnow.
Noting the bent double rods to my right and left
and the strained grunts of the anglers wielding
them, I realized that we’d found the grouper,
and that it was time for me to change baits. As I
replaced the cigar minnow I’d been sending to
the bottom with a piece of cut grunt, I heard the
distinct thumps of fish hitting fiberglass and
turned around to see two fat red grouper
flopping on the deck, and two wide grins on the
faces of Capt. Brad Phillips and Fisherman’s
Post Publisher Gary Hurley.
The grunt chunk wasn’t on the bottom for 5
seconds before I hooked up with a grouper of
my own and struggled to pry the red away from
its live bottom home. Hurley and I had been
itching to catch some grouper for months, and
we’d finally worked in a trip with Phillips, who
operates the aptly named Fish Spanker
Charters out of Carolina Beach.
We arrived at the Carolina Beach boat ramp at
6:00 that Friday morning to find Phillips waiting
for us with his McKee Craft Freedom 22
(purchased at Saltwater Marine) tied up at the
dock. After we hopped on board, Phillips
throttled up the 250 hp Suzuki four stroke
outboard and guided the boat out Carolina
Beach Inlet. My anticipation rose along with the
sun as we headed east toward Phillips’ first
spot, a crack in the bottom about 40 miles off
the beach.
Throttling the boat down as we neared his GPS
numbers, Phillips circled the area and watched
the depth finder like a hawk while Hurley and I
spotted flying fish skipping across the wave
crests.
“There’s something down there. See that—that’
s not bait,” Phillips said, gesturing to the
orange marks hugging the bottom on the color
scope. After anchoring the boat, Phillips cut
squid and cigar minnows in half. He told us to
bait up with those first.
“Even elephants eat peanuts,” he explained.
“Really though, we hold off on the big baits until
we’ve got a chum line going down there. When
I say chum line, I’m talking about when the little
fish start pecking at the baits. It creates a cloud
that brings in the big fish from other parts of
the reef and gets them feeding.”
Our first spot produced only grunts for the bait
bucket—triggerfish and a few pinkies (red
porgies)—so Phillips decided to move on after
around 15 minutes. “Sometimes I’ll stay
longer—it all depends on what we’re catching.
If we’re losing baits and I feel like there are
grouper there, I’ll wait it out.”
Phillips’ chum line theory was proven correct at
the live bottom area he anchored on next. After
dropping the half squid and cigar minnows a
few times, Phillips recommended we bait up
with chunks of grunt. He and Hurley did so,
while I chose a whole cigar minnow, reasoning
that I’d caught grouper on them in the past.
When they both hooked up with our target
species while my bait was pecked apart, I
cranked my rig to the surface as fast as
possible to switch baits.
After those first three grouper, it was a rare
moment when one of us wasn’t leaning back on
a rod and trying to muscle a grouper away from
the structure. Speaking of rods, Phillips’
grouper outfits consist of long, 7-8’ original Star
rods with 4/0 Penn Senators. “The longer rods
give you more leverage when you’re trying to
get that grouper the first 10 ffet off the bottom,”
he said, “It’s all about that first 10 feet.” The
long rods also enable anglers to move much
more line when setting the hook, as compared
with a 5.5-6’ stand up rod.
Phillips’ rigs are very simple. He spools his
Penns with 80 Berkeley Big Game Mono, and
ties his rigs at the end of the mainline. He does
so with no swivel or unnecessary knots. Two
foot long loops spaced several feet apart make
up the hook leaders, and a third loop tied at
the end of the line holds the sinker.
When the bite slowed down, Phillips would let
out a few more feet of anchor line, placing us
on a slightly different part of the structure, and
generally, we’d hook a couple more grouper.
Proper anchoring is absolutely vital to
successful grouper fishing, as the fish will not
go far from structure to have a meal.
“Both the wind and the current are going to
push the boat when you’re tightening up on the
anchor line and you’ve got to adjust for that,”
Phillips explained to us. “The wind and current
are going about 90 degrees against each other
today, so with a west wind, the current’s
pushing us a little bit to the north. That’s why it
can take a couple tries to get set up right on
the bottom.”
Capt. Brad Phillips (right), of Fish Spanker
Charters out of Carolina Beach, and Max
Gaspeny, of Fisherman's Post, with a handful
of red grouper caught about 40 miles off the
beach on cut bait.
Although the current makes anchoring a more
complex task, Phillips likes for the current to be
moving. “You want the current so the baits
stand out on the leaders and the chum line is
moving. The ideal situation is the wind and
current going in the same direction, but you don’
t get that very often.”
After dropping back on the anchor several
times, Phillips, Hurley, and I had put 13 red
grouper and one scamp in the boat, leaving us
just one grouper shy of our three person, 15
fish limit. Though we’d intended to fish a light
line on the surface for potential dolphin, kings,
or wahoo, the bottom action had never slowed
down enough to set it out. With one grouper left,
and wanting to catch some pelagic fish, Phillips
took us to another spot a few miles away.
As we approached his next numbers, the three
of us noticed several floating objects including
some car lot flags, a wooden board, and lots of
sargassum weed. “There’s going to be some
dolphin here,” Phillips told us.
Sure enough, after anchoring and before we’d
had time to set the light line out, a blue and gold
shape shot out from under the boat to inspect a
small red grouper I’d reeled to the surface.
“There he is,” Phillips said, grabbing and
hooking a cigar minnow. As soon as the minnow
hit the water, the dolphin zoomed up and
inhaled it, only to break the line with a sudden
leap 15’ from the transom. After a quick re-rig,
Phillips set the light line out, and another
dolphin ate the minnow in moments,
greyhounding towards the bow.
“Grab it, Gary” Phillips urged, and Hurley
wasted no time in picking up the medium
spinning outfit as the drag shrieked and the
dolphin took more leaps. Following a 10 minute
fight that took him around the boat several
times, Hurley tired the spectacularly colored
mahi. With Phillips waiting, Hurley reeled the
dolphin within range of the gaff, and Phillips
ushered it into an open fishbox.
After some quick celebration, we reset the light
line and returned to bottom fishing, looking for a
big grouper to fill out our limit. It wasn’t long
before we heard the spinning reels drag
protesting another fish’s efforts to escape, and
this time I grabbed rod. This fish didn’t jump,
taking off on a long run instead. “That’s going to
be a king,” Philips predicted, and after I fought it
for a few minutes, he proved himself correct by
gaffing the silver-sided mackerel.
The action continued in similar fashion, with one
of us fighting a fish on the light line rod while the
others bottom fished for the next half hour. We
caught several more kings with the light line and
undersized red grouper on the bottom rods.
Phillips demonstrated how to vent the short
grouper, enabling them to swim back down to
the bottom structure instead of floating on the
surface as an easy meal for passing sharks or
birds.
Just after we picked up another king, Phillips
was dropping a cigar minnow when he got a
strike before the rig would have hit the bottom.
“Probably a scamp,” he said, “they like to hit it
on the way down.”
Once he set the hook, it became apparent to all
three of us that if it was a scamp, it was a huge
one, as Phillips was locked in a stalemate with
the fish for several moments. After gaining the
all important first 10’ of line, Phillips was able to
turn the fish and get it headed to the surface.
His scamp prediction turned out to be his only
wrong one of the day, although none of us were
complaining when he lifted a stout 16-18 lb. gag
grouper over the gunnel.
With our grouper limit complete, we decided to
troll our way back inshore a few miles seeing if
there were any more dolphin in the area. We
didn’t find anymore dolphin, but Phillips, always
watching the depthfinder, found what appeared
to be a wreck or large rock outcropping rising
around 10’ from the bottom. He saved the spot
in his GPS waypoint list in order to bottom fish it
on a day when his clients didn’t already have a
full box of grouper.
Phillips found most of his best spots this way,
and recommends the method to anglers looking
for good grouper holes. “People are worried
about having numbers to come out here, but
they can just take an area, troll it, and just
punch man-overboard in the GPS when they
see something on the bottom. I don’t even fish
exactly where the X’s are on the GPS. They just
give me an idea of where to look. When I circle
around and see a nice piece of chunky bottom,
that’s where I anchor. The GPS just gives me a
specific small area to search in.”
Generally, when grouper fishing, Phillips wants
to fish bottom structure where the current is
flowing from the shallow side to the deep side.
“You want your line dropping onto the deep
side,” he explained. “That high part holds the
pinkies and sharks, and the bottom side is
where you find the grunts, groupers, and
snappers.”
Though we didn’t find any more dolphin on the
troll, partly because the scattered floating weed
was fouling our lines, Hurley and I were all
smiles about having boated a grouper limit,
kings, dolphin, grunts, pinkies, and other bottom
fish. With red groupers up to 10 lbs. in the box,
the big gag, and the pelagics, the grouper trip
we’d been eagerly anticipating could be called
nothing but 100% success.
If lifting grouper off the bottom (and having fresh
grouper for dinner) sounds like a trip you’d
enjoy, then call Capt. Brad Phillips onboard the
“Fish Spanker” at (910) 279-4204, or email him
at brad.phillips@hotmail.com.
Subscribe to Fisherman's Post Newspaper and
get the unabridged version--all the photos, all
the articles, and all the features delivered to
your door.
| "Spanking Summer Grouper" with Capt. Brad Phillips |
Captain Brad Phillips
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| (910) 279-4204 Brad.Phillips@hotmail.com |