For a long time here on the Gulf Coast, anglers who ventured offshore to chase after snapper and other delicious tasting and hard fighting fish scorned a very common offshore resident of our waters. It was not that long ago that when a triggerfish was hooked and brought to the boat, groans of disappointment and perhaps a few choice words of the coarser type would be heard.
My, how things have changed. Today, legal sized triggerfish are welcome additions to any offshore reef fish catch combination. Anglers have discovered that these funny-looking fish fight hard, bite very aggressively, and best of all, taste wonderful when prepared for a big fish dinner.
However, just because there are lots of triggerfish in the Gulf, that doesn’t mean that anglers can just run offshore a few miles and start catching big, bragging size triggers anytime. There are some things which can improve our chances of escaping the hordes of undersized bait-stealing triggers and finding the big, keeper- size and even trophy sized triggerfish.
Expert Triggerfish Tips
Captain Harris Scruggs of Team Aquatic Fishing is an Alabama native who moved to Panama City, Florida with his family as a child has fished the inshore and offshore waters of the northern Gulf for a long time, and he knows quite a bit about catching triggerfish, especially, big triggers. He offers us some very good advice when it comes to catching triggers.
First, triggerfish are very common in the Gulf at this time. In fact, the swarms of smaller triggers can really complicate things for anglers who are looking for bigger fish such as snapper, grouper, amberjack due to the fact that can and will strip cut bait and even live bait intended for these bigger fish in a matter of seconds.
“Whatever the limit is, you’re going to catch a bunch of them that are just undersize. So, what do you do if you want to target bigger triggerfish?,” Scruggs said.
There are a number of things that anglers can do to improve their chances of catching a really big triggerfish, and make no mistake about this, big triggerfish are out there in our northern Gulf waters, and they will put up a very hard fight when hooked. But the bigger triggers are not to be found on every reef and wreck.
Where To Find Triggerfish
“So, obviously on a charter boat, fishing the traditional two-hook chicken rig just doesn’t get it done often for the bigger triggerfish. So, if I’m going to try to just catch the bigger triggerfish, there are a few things to keep in mind,” Scruggs advised. “First, you have to obviously be in the right place and you know, a smaller rock is a really good place for bigger triggerfish to hang out. I’ve caught my bigger triggers, and by bigger, I mean ten or twelve pounders which are 26 inch fish and not the 17 or 18 inch fish, that were on a small junk pile, like a private spot like a chicken coop or something like that. Usually there’s some bigger triggerfish on those places. You’d be surprised at the bigger triggerfish that are on these little kinds of homemade places.”
So anglers looking for the mega-triggers might want to look for smaller, less-fished small spots on the bottom where the bigger triggers hang out away from the crowds of smaller triggerfish and anglers.
The Right Rigging For Big Triggerfish
Although triggerfish can be caught on just about any offshore fishing rig, our chances for fooling the bigger, smarter triggers can be improved by making sure our gear is right for the job.
Scruggs said that he likes to fish a 25 to 40 pound leader that is four or five feet long with a 3000 to 4000 spinning reel and rod set up. He fishes his bait up off the bottom 15 or 20 feet with a three or four ounce lead and a long leader and finds that small hook work well.”
Traditionally, the bait of choice for triggerfish is a simple square chunk of squid or cut bait. Tons of triggers have been taken on just this simple bait offering.
However, Scruggs pointed out there may be better ways to fool the bigger triggers.
“Instead of using a square piece of bait like a piece of squid or something that’s going to twist on the way down especially on these lighter lines, I like to streamline the bait- kind of make it longer than it is wide. It actually flutters down but doesn’t get all wrapped up in the leader. This usually gets the bigger triggers,” Scruggs said.
So how long should the mega-trigger bait offering be?
“How long do I make the bait strip? Up to four or five inches long. I think that is perfectly acceptable. If you were to cut a fillet off a baitfish- a mackerel or something- like a larger 14- inch strip, you could kind of cut it down a lot and have four baits off one fish,” he explained.
Final Thoughts
Triggerfish will fool an angler in many ways. First, even though they don’t look like they could move very fast, triggers are notoriously fast at stealing an angler’s bait. These funny-looking fish are fast on the bite, and any angler who is not aware of what’s happening below the surface will soon be fishing with a bare hook, and not getting any attention from the triggers below.
“Anybody that’s spending time on the water knows that triggerfish will eat your bait off the hook whether you have two hooks, three hooks, one hook, he will eat it off before you know it, just like sheepshead. And if you’re not paying attention to the bite, you’re just sitting down there wasting time. When you drop that bait down- especially the first time and you get a good solid count- ‘One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi- until you hit bottom,” Scruggs pointed out “Keep that count in mind. Because from now on, every time that bait is coming down, there’s triggerfish seeing it coming. Usually they’re up in the water column so they start to pick at the bait before it ever hits bottom. As soon as the bait hits bottom, they’re on it. So if you don’t get your line where you can feel those bites within the first six seconds, most of the time, you don’t have any bait left.”
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