EDITOR'S LETTER

I’m no bottom fishing expert. I’ve caught a few nice grouper and snapper over the years, and have certainly fileted my fair share of black seabass (I love those little rascals. So easy to catch, so good to eat!). But I still have a lot to learn.

Though I’m a big fan of trolling for pelagic species, we’ll often stop at the Charleston 60, Y73, Comanche, The Garden, or one of a few personal spots in 80 to 90 feet of water just to pretty up the fish box with some tasty bottom dwellers. I’ve dropped all kinds of baits down to the dark reefs and wrecks off Charleston — squid, cigar minnows, cut bait, live pinfish and menhaden, Shimano Butterfly jigs, big ole bucktail jigs … We even caught a seabass one time on a piece of leftover fried chicken.

But here’s the thing: I hardly ever, ever, catch triggerfish. We’ve put maybe two or three on the boat in about four years. I always heard that they were pretty tasty but a pain to clean. So I usually ignored them when it came time to divvy up the catch.

Not anymore.

For this month’s cover article (Page 20), I took a trigger trip with Paul Godbout, one of the Lowcountry’s most well-known, knowledgeable and entertaining fishermen. Pauls’ a hoot. He also knows how to flat wear out the fish.

Paul suggested the trigger article, citing the flurry of new regulations tightening bag limits on many kinds of snapper and grouper. We both agreed that it would behoove Lowcountry anglers to widen their list of target species, and Paul assured me that with just a little know-how, just about anybody could enjoy a highly productive fishing trip targeting triggers. He also sang the praises of fresh trigger filets, and even supplied a fool-proof recipe.

Paul was right, on both counts.

After about two hours of tutoring, I had the triggers down. What had I been doing wrong over the years? Two major mistakes, it turns out.

First, I’d been overshooting. Instead of big chunks of bait on large J-hooks and circle hooks, I needed to scale down to 2/0 Gamakatsu live bait hooks with tiny strips of squid and cut fish. Triggers have small mouths with chisel-like teeth, and unless you right-size your tackle, they’ll clean your clock every time you drop down.

Secondly, I’d been a little too quick to pull the trigger (ahem) when a feeling a strike. Triggers aren’t the only fish down there, and a bait usually will get mobbed by hordes of small grunts, baby snappers and Lord knows what else as soon as it hits the bottom. If you set the hook every time one of these little guys takes a swipe at your bait, you’ll be reeling up little fish all day long. The key, not surprisingly, is patience. I learned to let the little fish mess with the bait and wait for a nice trigger to rush over to check out the action. I just had to recognize the difference between the staccato hits of small fry and the solid “thump” of a trigger.

Give it a try next time you’re out there.