Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

Red snappers are the most important structure-dwelling species off the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

However, recent decisions by the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council have cut bag limit and season lengths down dramatically. Anglers wanting to make an offshore trip worth the expense and effort will find that diversity is the key in terms both of the species pursued and the tactics employed to put them in the boat.

RED SNAPPERS
Let's start with red snappers first. With bag limits at an all-time low anglers want to catch really big snappers, so let's skip the standard techniques and talk about those that will put those big sows in the ice chest.

For trophy-sized snappers, the wrecks and rocks that can be found from 39 to 50 miles between Sabine Pass and Cameron are tops. These "hard spots" may require a little extra effort to find, but more often than not they produce big snappers. Snappers are not drawn to big structure only. The smaller well heads, rocks and tiny reefs hold good numbers of fish, too. And since these areas are not pressured as much as the rigs in this area, you tend to find more big fish there.

Anchor up-current of a given piece of structure and fall back across it. The preferred method when fishing these areas is to use a typical bottom rig with either squid or Spanish sardine rigged on two circle hooks. A lot of times, you'll have a strong current and you need to get the bait down to the structure. When you're fishing rigs, you've got a little more leeway, but presenting a bait 5 feet in one direction or another can make all of the difference in the world.

Anglers fishing the southwest coast should also consider the Sabine bank, a plateau that rises off of the Gulf's floor and forms a shallow flat that parallels both sides of the ship channel that leads out of the Sabine jetties.

This 25- to 40-foot deep flat attracts an awesome amount of baitfish and is dotted by hundreds of platforms and wrecks that attract some monster red snappers.

There are snappers as close as six miles off of the jetties here, but for the bigger fish, you might do well to use the 18-mile light as your marker. Once you get past the light, the water level drops off about to about 45 to 50 feet and you start finding some really big sow snappers. About 10 miles southeast of the 18-mile light are the Tenneco and Mobil Oil Fields. The water here gets very clear, usually ranging from greenish to ultra-clear blue/green.

The best option is to tie off to one of the rigs and put out some chum downcurrent of the structure. Bring a long rope and an anchor hook, so you can drift back from the rig itself. A lot of times during the summer, the big snappers will be suspended off of the rigs out in the open water. You need to chum them in to get their attention.

The best chumming fish are pogies, oily fish that can be bought by the pound at coastal bait camps. Smash the pogies up in a bucket and then throw the contents overboard. This creates an impressive oil slick and draws the snappers toward the surface. Once the area is chummed, free-line live pogies or squid toward the fish. A trick I learned from Capt. Todd Bryson a while back is to rig the bait on a stout 4/0 hook and let it do its thing.

"The key is to drift the bait slowly," he said. "During summer months, when the oxygen is low, a lot of the snappers are holding about halfway up the water column. Around the rigs, you don't always have to fish on the bottom. Also, when the fish get to biting really good, we'll fish with big spoons and bucktail jigs and usually tip them with pogy or squid."