In the last few days a large pod of bait has moved into the bouy line area, and filling the live well with large blue runners is fun on light tackle. The blue runners are the favorite food of the greater amberjack as well as cobia, king mackerel and shark. Our target today was Amberjack and big ones....we loaded spinning reels with 65 lb braid on 7 and 8 ft med-heavy rods, tied in a 80 LB mono leader about 5 ft long with a 7/0 J hook snelled, and a 1 oz sinker on the nose of the bait.
Pull up-current of the target, today it was an old shrimp boat in 90 ft, and drift back to the wreck with the bait well behind the boat. I rig one bait through the nose with a balloon tied a few feet up the line and the other through the shoulders to make him swim down and away. The Aj's will rise to the bait that is struggling against the current and small sinker and that helps to keep them out of the wreck during the fight,,,which will be a while. Big Amberjack, similar to bigger red snappers, hold high in the water column anyway, so don't bother dropping to the bottom, just keep letting line out slowly as you drift back and HANG ON !!!
The 23 lb red snapper in the picture below came up and hit a 2 lb blue runner that was maybe 15 ft down in 90 ft of water....you just never know what your gonna get on the "big pond"..
