If you arrive late to a workup but find gannets all sitting on the water, this is also a key time to drop your lures amongst the resting birds. The snapper can still be found in good numbers underneath and we call this the "after match function." Use your sounder as you move around the sitting birds to find patches of sign and send down your lures, slow jigs with skirts work well in this situation as you drift the area and keep the jig hard on the bottom. On the Oceanpro 535 centre console, we use a Lowrance Recon electric trolling motor, and its benefits are hard to overstate. For jigging, one of its biggest advantages is spot lock, which lets us hold position over schooling fish sign. When we find good sign below, we simply deploy the Recon and lock in place so we can keep dropping jigs onto the fish. Find the gannets and dolphins feeding on pilchards and experience some of the best snapper jigging you can get. A quality overhead rod such as this Lanza Double Shot spooled with braid to jig deeper water (30m+) is a must have jigging combo. "With so much baitfish encountered in spring for predators like snapper, this is the best time to use jigs which resemble the bait as the fish are homed in on feeding on this food source." Feature 14 FISHING IN GODZONE MAGAZINE
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