Hunting dog snappers

Jake and I discuss this pretty often so I thought I'd bounce this around in here and see what you guys think,

Dog snappers are one of our preferred target fish here. There are three ways that we encounter them.
1. The "lone ranger" who you happen to cross paths with on the reef. You may spook him out or you saw him and snuck up and got a shot.
2. The school. This is what we do the most. We have several spots where there is a resident school ranging from 40 up to 200 fish, depending on the time of year or.....I'm not sure what it depends on. Maybe someone gill netted some. After bumbling around with a school and getting one or two, we've come up with the plan of "never spook them", meaning we never show aggression. The best way is to get to the bottom and lay there but at a couple of the spots, this means laying on the bottom at 80 feet. A bit much for my skill level. But, I've found that I can drop to 60-70 feet with a kind of curled up body shape, hiding my gun and never making eye contact with the fish, and they''ll still come to me. There are always a few curious ones. Sometimes big ones.
But, if someone makes a charge, gun extended, eyes wide open, looking at the fish....they won't let you close for pretty much the rest of the day. I think that using the method I described that maybe they think I"m actually acting in defense of the approaching fish. It doesn't seem to alarm them. Maybe they think I'm a big jellyfish? hah.
3. There is another spot where right about 3 pm, the dogs come filing in, apparently to find holes to roost in for the night. In this spot, we just wait in ambush. If I see one in the distance I just get down, only about 15-20 feet to the bottom, and wait and ambush.

Do ALL dogs come in to roost at night? It would seem that they wouldn't stay out in open water on the drop off. I know they come in at one other deeper spot because I've seen the school inside the reef early morning and late evening, but I"m not sure of their movements and the water is much deeper even inside the reef. (50 feet) It's a bigger area and they can sneak right past us in the normally not so great vis. That cut has a lot of water movement.

We spent 3 hours at one deep spot on the reef yesterday. Jake shot one....er, make that two. He can dive to 80-90 feet and lay on the bottom. But Mo and Tino were with us. I told them just to watch but both got excited and I saw them both charging down, gun extended and wild eyed...haha. The school was unapproachable the rest of the day. I would see them off int he distance and dive down away from them to 60 + feet, look around and they were GONE.
Anyway, we had a fun day. Still got a few nice ones, and a few school masters....barracuda. Yep.

Forgot...I also had a nice hog on. I hit it and my shaft went into a little hole, holding it tight. I had to surface and while I was breathing up to go get it, the barracuda on the right of the picture came in and ate about half of it. He paid dearly for that bite of hog though....haha

Quote from LunkerBuster

Nothing to offer about dogs. I find mine occasionally in holes. Rare for me

Nice pics of the tribe though. Stellar fish

I see them duck into holes too Judah..., but I've rarely, if ever got a shot at one inside. They can disappear into the smallest looking crack and .....gone. Waiting doesn't work. I've never seen one do more than a quick peek and duck back inside.

Quote from Josediaz

The snapper has white spot below the eye (Aguadera), if the gentle and curious shot ,the contrary you shot in the cave or when look,s are curious.

The copper-colored snapper, usually is suspicious, then, waiting fishing.
If suspicious, then fishing on hold, if it gets cave, it is sometimes easy prey, sometimes very difficult prey.
Usually when I see them and do not run, waiting fishing .
I personally believe that when the snapper is suspicious, spearguns disconnected buoy, speargun-reel waiting fishing, making throaty noises (uh,uh,uh) ,turn on the flashlight,I try to arouse their curiosity .
If I hear "bun" bun ",noise tails, go my way.

Bored not more.

Buena pesca, felicitaciones.

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By copper color, do you mean cubera? I agree, they are more suspicious. They approach us when we first get to a spot but will go hide on the bottom after that. Unless after a full moon and they're in spawning mode. Then they're not so shy, at least here.
And even dogs....it depends on when someone else may have spooked them. You don't know who was at the spot the day or 4 or 5 days before possibly terrorizing the fish.
And the "WHUP" or "bun" sound is what I hear the cuberas do. Just as you're lining up for a shot and make eye contact.....you hear that sound and they change direction.
The dogs just turn and you see that little fluttering tail as they move down deep and away.
Jake and I talk about this for hours....it's half the fun.
And muttons....well, that could be another thread. They're very unpredictable to me. Sometimes dumb as a cobia and sometimes spooky as cubera....

Quote from Dan

Interesting post Hank. Are you using a reel or float line? Are your companions using reels or float lines? If some are using float lines the fish's behavior may depend on it.

All reels.
I have used a floatline drifting in the blue outside one of our school areas and the dogs were venturing out into the blue to check us out. I had a flasher and floatline. We were hoping for kingfish or maybe wahoo but after seeing about 6 dogs, Jake said, "F this dad...let's go in and get some snappers. We did ok and got a couple each.

Quote from sheff

in the second picture, what species is the fish just to the right of the cuda?

The one on the right of the cuda on the right is a dog snapper,

The three fish on the right of the cuda on the left are, yellow jack, a white margate (grunt?) and a schoolmaster snapper.

Quote from sheff

yep, white margate is the one. I see those, and school masters quite a bit. Do you eat them?

Yes.

Yesterday we still had really dirty water so we hit some shallow spots. The last spot was where the dogs come in to hide in holes for the night.
I've been there many times and know this happens. When the water is clear you can see them from a distance, but they can see you also. I would see them across another spur of coral and get down in between on the sand and crawl over and up, trying to catch them on the other side.
But yesterday I learned a new, better style. I saw the first ones come in at about 3 pm but they had already passed by. It does no good to chase those. The duck into holes and are gone.
So, as I was waiting patiently to see some, I got bored and started getting down in only about 10 feet of water and hiding behind coral and rocks. Lo and be fricken' hold, after about a minute I look behind me towards the shallows and there are 4 nice ones right behind me. I pulled my gun around and got one.
I go back to the boat and Jake says they just saw a big ass bull shark but I had to get one more. I went back and started looking again.....nothing. I dropped down, waited about 45 seconds, looked behind again, and there were about 8. Shot another one. I oculd have continued but we had to go.
Apparently it's just best to get down and wait and assume they know you're there even though you never see them until they come close to you. Smart fish.
I also saw the biggest cobia I ever saw. At least....70 lbs? As it passed in only about 4 feet of water, almost inside the reef I thought, "tarpon?,....no.....shark?.....no......COBIA !!!! ....shit. It was hauling ass though and went right into the shallows and disappeared.
Tino jake and Mo cleaned up on some schoolmasters and Tino AGAIN, got two really nice hogfish.
Two days of diving and 122 dives on my computer. I'm beat.