About 30 mi south/southwest. Due south keeps you on top of the shoals for a while before it starts to drop. I would usually fish them at VE119 and the rigs in that vicinity...about 35mi out of freshwater mouth. Also about 60ft or so IIRC. I think you could find them a little closer heading a little west.
Two keys to catching mangroves once you've located them....
1) Let the bait drift, with a few pieces of the same as chum, without ANY tension on the line. The idea is to get the baited hook to free drift at the same sink rate as the chum. If you stop the "fall" with any tension the mangroves will almost always shy away (I have found this to be true even when fishing them with live shrimp in the clear water of the Keys).
2) Now...you've got one to swallow the bait and it is hooked up firm...and it is going like a bat out of hell to cut you off at the closest barnacle encrusted leg/pipe. It will succeed unless you react quick/have the drag bound down hard/and pull it away from the rig with aggression. The suggestion of a high test braid and fluoro leader is how we have had the most success but I either run from the stern of the boat all the way toward the bow as soon as I set the hook to gain some distance between the fish and the rig. Some times, if positioning the boat upcurrent by power, I will throw it in gear and move off the rig about 20 yards pronto...the crew knows this and are prepared cause we hit it in gear hard for a few seconds. Either way works well if they are running in the 6+ lb range.
Last edited by rardoin; 08-18-2015 at 10:48 AM.
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08-18-2015, 10:34 AM
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