Monthly Archives: May 2008

We had two half days today, which is usually a situation that doesn’t work well this time of year with the fishing being generally further offshore. We Dolphin fished in the morning along a current line between 200 and 300 feet of water. we caught 8 or 10 schoolies and finished up with a pair in the 20lb class which wouldn’t bite trolled baits but fell for cast live baits. In the afternoon we slow trolled live bait along a 150′ color change and caught 3 sailfish including a double header, a 30lb Blackfin Tuna, 3 little Tunney and a 15lb Kingfish.

I have just returned from 9 days on Isla Mujeres Mexico. In addition to several charters, I Captained a boat participating in the annual ‘Masters’ Sailfish tournament. Tournament rules stipulate the use of circle hooks and dead bait. Sails must be fought from a stationary boat, (no backing down) on 20lb test. Stop watches are used to measure exact fighting time, with the fastest releases scoring the most points. We finished third in the Tournament with 21 releases, our fastest time was 1.04 minutes. In addition to Sailfish we also caught numerous Dolphin over 40 lbs and a 60lb Wahoo. Anyone interested in fishing Isla Mujeres should contact me for more information.

I spent the last 3 days skiff fishing for Tarpon. Overall the Tarpon fishing is slow given that this should be the peak of the season. We caught 3 Tarpon all over 100lbs and jumped off 3 or 4 others. The 3 day trip also included Blacktip Sharks, Jack Cravelles and Grey Snapper.

Today we concluded a 4 day charter with Jim Toabe, his adult sons and a son in law. Jim is perhaps my longest serving charter client. We’ve been fishing together for 30 years, and Jim is still going strong at age 83. We did a whole variety of different types of fishing during the 4 days; kite fishing with live bait for Sails, dead bait trolling for Dolphin and anchoring and chumming for bottom fish. The 4 days produced lots of quality fish; we caught 3 Sais and had several others on, we got a 40lb Cobia, several large Blackfin Tuna including one which weighed 36.5 lbs, (thats a huge Blackfin) large yellowtail Snapper, Mutton Snapper and plenty of Dolphin up to 26 lbs.