Slice Earns A Nickname

Everyone has that one fishing buddy known as Tangle Tim! You can say he has his own unique “style” of fishing. He does catch fish. That said, he can often be found doing what Tangle Tim does; you guessed it. Tangling everyones lines and constantly retying rigs.

Well on this recent trip his habits changed drastically. We ran about 37 miles out of Johns Pass to one of our many grouper holes. It was near a full-moon so the bite was slow and we we weren’t pulling up the size we wanted. We tried live pin fish and dead bait to get the bite going and we had got 2 keeper grouper but still it wasn’t anything to write home about. So Tim says, “I’m going to throw’em a curve ball”. He grabs a live pinfish and cuts 2 slices in them and dropped it down. WHAMM! Wouldn’t you know it, a 27″ grouper slams his rod almost pulling him out of the boat.

We all had a good laugh and thought it was just a one time thing. Sticking to his guns, Tangle Tim slices another pin fish and wouldn’t you know it. BAMMM! Another keeper grouper slams his rod. Well that was all it took for the rest of the group to adopt his tactic and sure enough. The same story played out over and over again. Keeper Grouper for everyone aboard! We had our limit within a half an hour. it was at that point that we started calling him Slice!

The moral of the story is, when the bite is tough, switch it up. Sometimes the smallest change like a lighter leader, smaller hook or a slice in your pin-fish can make the biggest difference!