Tips, Tactics, and Tackle
Locating bottom fish and structure out of Port Canaveral
By JohnB
Dec 23, 2004, 23:06

The following is a "brief" tutorial on how to find bottom structure and bottom fish out of Port Canaveral.

Artificial Structure
There are 2 kinds of artificial structure,
Stuff that sank unexpectedly (like City Services, Carol Lee, etc) and stuff that was intentionally dropped (like CFOA, titan, etc).

The unexpectedly sunk stuff more often than not is pretty well documented on charts and lists, and also usually gets hit pretty hard by fisherman and divers. Sometimes it will produce, but usually only smaller fish. It is good for bait runs and keeping young anglers amused. Also, if you are trying to figure out how to use your depth finder, these are large targets that come 20-40 feet off from the bottom, and should give you good practice searching for them. I usually will anchor on these, especially if I don't have an experienced crew. When I have tried to drift across these, I wind up losing a lot of tackle. Anchor 50-70 feet up current from them. If you don't get bites, you can let more anchor rope out to position closer. This varies depending on the amount of current there is, how much weight you are using, and how aggressive the fish are about coming out of structure to grab bait. Chumming also works good in this scenario. Good places to hit are the Dutch, Lead, Carol Lee, Sub Wreck, and Damocles. The last tip on these, is a lot of the older wrecks are breaking up, and if you hunt around you will find smaller structure that is not well known and may hold bigger fish.

The artificial reefs are a little different. They usually consist of a general area of bottom structure that was intentionally put there. The relief off the bottom is generally 10 feet or less. When fishing them, it pays off to recon at least a couple hundred yards around these. Put your GPS map on, and run strip patterns like you were mowing the lawn about 75 feet apart. I usually like to run N/S patterns. Another tip, is they usually put these down in areas where fish are found (like the 21F ridge). Search north and south on these at the same depths. These are also hot trolling zones too. I don't generally anchor on these areas but drift them. Put your GPS in map mode, 80 foot range, and get 100 feet up current from where you marked fish or structure. Drop your baits and drift to at least a couple hundred feet past the mark. If you get bites, hit the MOB, and continue to work the area. If no bites, motor back up to a place 50 feet to one side or the other perpendicular to the last drift. Drift the mow the lawn pattern until you have worked the area, or are catching fish. Last tip here, is if you have a place that has produced fish, and you go there, and mark structure, but not fish, fish it anyways. You don't always mark fish, but still can catch them.

Natural structure
Here are some tips for natural structure out of PC, and to some extent, work for Ponce and SBI. There are 3 distinct natural reef lines that were left over from the glacier ice age when the ocean levels were a lot lower than they are now. They are the 12 fathom, 21 fathom, and 27 fathom lines. They generally all run N-S more or less. If you run anywhere out of PC headed east more or less, at these depths, you will find structure.

One of the nice features of all 3 of these, is if you are drifting north (which is the way the current goes a lot of the time) you can pretty much drift along parallel with these structures. I generally don't anchor any of these.

The 12F is the High Bar, Pelican Flats, 8A, and Chris Benson reefs. The relief on this varies from a couple of feet to 12 feet in some sections. There is some nice coral and broken bottom on Pelican, and to a lesser extent on Benson. 8A is pretty much a rocky ledge line, but has a few interesting features in places. Tip for 12F line, is if you head south, half way to SBI out of PC, you will find a huge cliff of relief on this line, and is my favorite "hero" location at this depth, especially in the winter months.

The 21F is probably the least defined of these 3 features. It is mostly just broken or rough bottom. The features on it are not as well pronounced, but it sure can hold fish at times. The area of features and relief is more spread out East-West than the other two, but they are not as pronounced. I usually work this area north of the weather bouy, but have found some nice stuff to the south also. Tip for the 21F, a lot of times I don't mark fish, but catch them out there. Maybe it's just me, but I think the fish out there roam around a little more, and are not as structure centric.

The 27F is probably the biggest feature out there, both in relief (172' to 195' dropoff), and in length (I have never found either end of it out of PC). Finding it is actually not much of a challenge, but tactics and tackle fishing in nearly 200 feet can be a little challenging depending on the wind, current, and wave conditions. If you are just starting out, it would probably be a good plan to ride out with someone who is familiar and experienced with fishing this feature. Tip for the 27F, for some reason lately, all the fish seem to be on the shallow side of this feature, sometimes 100 feet or more west of it. There are also rock or rubble piles on the deep side which can be very productive.

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