For more than 50 years, Bobby Williams has charter-fished out of Biloxi. Williams has three sons, which led him to dub his fourth charterboat Three Sons IV. He’s fished before and after storms in good and bad conditions.Williams is a do-it-all captain, knows the rocks, the reefs and the rigs where blue marlin, wahoo, dolphin, magnum-sized yellowfin tuna, redfish, king mackerel, tarpon, amberjack and snapper hold. Williams will tell us where he finds fish in July, and how he catches them.
Although Williams fishes for reef fish and trolls for redfish, he also loves to fish offshore for marlin and other big-game fish at this time of year.
“To catch marlin and other species of big-game fish, you have to locate the right water,” he said. “I prefer to find a rip with cobalt-blue water on one side of the boat and green water on the other side. I like to fish for Spanish mackerel and large or horse ballyhoo using Ilander lures with ballyhoo behind the bait. I prefer to fish around floater rigs, if I can locate water there.
“Blue marlin are fickle fish. I’ve tagged as many as four in a single day or fished an entire week without seeing one. During the July before Hurricane Katrina hit, I tagged 10 blue marlin in 14 days, and had two more on the line.
“When the water gets warm, and the baitfish start coming in, you can expect to catch numbers of blue marlin, and July is a great month to catch them. When fishing for marlin, we also can catch wahoo, tuna and dolphin that weigh up to 50 pounds.
“On one particular three-day fishing trip, we caught 40 dolphin, each weighing over 40 pounds. I caught my largest wahoo, which weighed 82 pounds, just south of the Midnight Lump. On an average day fishing offshore, we generally can catch dolphin and wahoo.
“If we get really lucky, we’ll also catch blue marlin. The biggest blue marlin I’ve ever caught on my boat weighed more than 700 pounds.
“When fishing offshore, I prefer to leave at midnight, so we can begin fishing at daylight. On average, most of our offshore trips are about 18- to 20-hours long.
“This month, the red snapper bite should be really good, but the two red snapper per person rule limits the number of snapper we can catch and keep.
“This month, we usually don’t catch many grouper. On bottom trips, we’ll catch several types of snapper, amberjack and often one or two cobia. If the past dictates the present, this year in July, we’ll catch plenty of amberjack about 75 miles out.
“When targeting amberjack, cobia and snapper, we’ll fish with live bait. My favorite is hardtails (blue runners), which we catch around the rigs. Using these big baits, we often catch amberjack weighing from 30 to 50 pounds each. Also, we’ve caught nice-sized tuna offshore weighing over 200 pounds fishing these big baits.
“During our eight-hour trips, we troll for redfish and catch blacktip sharks behind shrimp boats. As the weather warms up in July, the king mackerel bite will become very strong.
“Also, this month, we’ll have tarpon migrating through our area along with the redfish. The tarpon start coming through here at the end of July and remain in the region until the end of August. We usually find tarpon between Ship Island and the Chandeleur Islands. We’ll see numbers of tarpon rolling around the pods of baitfish, but the most tarpon we’ve ever caught in one year is five.
“When fishing for tarpon, we prefer to use spoons. However, getting a spoon into the bony mouth of the tarpon is hard. Although we have hooked tarpon with live bait, most of the time we catch them while trolling spoons for other species.
“In state waters, anglers can keep three redfish per person, so we’ll troll around Horn Island, Ship Island and the Chandeleur Islands. You can have one redfish over 30 inches long, and you can keep two king mackerel per person. In July, we’ll often catch king mackerel that weigh 50 or 60 pounds each, but our average king mackerel will be 20 pounds.”
To contact Capt. Bobby Williams, call (228) 392-8243, visit www.threesonscharters.com, or email ThreeSonsIV@aol.com.
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