By Sue Cocking, Guy Harvey Outpost staff writer

by scocking@guyharveyoutpost.com

With the South Atlantic grouper harvest season set to close on Jan. 1, now is a great time to catch dinner off St. Augustine.

Father-and-son charterboat captains Bill and Billy Hunsicker of Endless Summer Charters will take you to the hot spots for however long you want to fish aboard your choice of three sportfishing boats headquartered at Conch House Marina.

There’s the 52-foot Endless Summer; 43-foot Endless Summer II; and 41-foot Endless Summer III, and you can book your choice of excursions:  a four-hour trip to waters about 65 feet deep; six hours to 75 feet deep; eight hours to 100 feet deep; 10 hours to 100-125 feet deep and 11 hours out to 200-plus feet of water.

The ten-hour trip might be your best bet for grouper and other species, including amberjack, triggerfish, black sea bass and cobia.  You can also catch mangrove and mutton snapper; however if you hook a red snapper, you have to release it because the season is closed.  Captain Bill Sr. says the fish tend to hold on shipwrecks, live bottom, and drop-offs a good ways offshore and will readily bite both live and dead bait.

If you would prefer to troll, you’ll have shots at both tuna and wahoo along the Continental Shelf about 50 nautical miles offshore.

When you get back to the Conch House, the crew will gladly fillet your catch and you can have it prepared at the dockside restaurant and served with a couple of sides.

Eat well because you’re going to need fuel for all the walking and touring you’re going to do in St. Augustine.  More on that in a later blog.

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Sue Cocking chronicles the Guy Harvey Outpost travel and adventure experience in regular blog posts on GuyHarveyOutpostNews.com/.  For 21 years, Cocking covered the full spectrum of outdoors adventure opportunities in South Florida and beyond for the Miami Herald, including fishing, diving, hunting, paddling camping, sailing and powerboat racing.  She is a certified scuba diver and holder of an IGFA women’s world fly fishing record for a 29-pound permit. 

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