Yearly Archives: 2008

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.

With beautiful weather today we started by running offshore. Stopped on a current line in 700′ and caught a Sailfish. We then found two schools of Dolphin and caught a dozen fish. It’s still a little early for dependable Dolphin fishing. We had another Sail bite in 550′ but pulled him off. We then ran inshore and anchored on the reef for the afternoon. The Yellowtail Snapper responded and we caught several dozen 2lb fish and also a 20lb King Mackeral.

Today we concluded fishing the World Sailfish Championship Tournament. After a great start, (6 on day one) we only caught 1 more fish the rest of the way. We were 1 for 1 on day two and never saw a fish today as the bite shifted way to the west, out of range for all but the fastest boats. We ended up finishing 29th out of a field of 101.

First day of the World Sailfish Tournament. There were over 100 boats entered, including many of the best Sailfishing teams in south Florida. We caught 6 Sails on the day and are currently in 5th place.

Today we practice fished this morning in Advance of the World Sailfish Championship Tournament which begins tomorrow. Wind was 25 knots out of the NW. We caught 1 Sail and hooked a very large Hammerhead Shark on a kite bait, he ate through the leader after about 5 minutes. We quit fishing about 12:30pm.

Had a beautiful weather day today, maybe too pretty for good fishing. We tried Sailfishing first and caught some kingfish and bonitas but no Sails. We then dropped on some wrecks and caught several Amberjacks and lost several large mystery fish. We finished the day anchored on a 135′ ledge and caught 4 Mutton Snapper, 1 10lb Red Grouper, a 15lb Margate and a large Porgy, all good eating.

Today we had another group with kids who were looking for action. We anchored on the reef edge and had the big Yellowtail on top and biting. The current on the reef which had been running to the east has switched back to the west in the last day or so and that has got the Yellowtails really biting. We had a 30lb Cobia swim up and hooked him but he got away. We also had 6 or 7 Kingfish and a couple of bonitas. The last hour and a half of the day we got off the hook and slow trolled with the kite. We hooked and caught a 50lb Sailfish which was a nice way to finish the day.

We had a morning half day trip with 3 generations of the same family. I brought 10 dozen live shrimp and we started out anchored on a patch reef in 30′. We caught Ceros, small Yellowtail and one keeper Mutton. We then reanchored on the deeper reef and the big Yellowtail came right to the surface. We had a 30lb Cobia swim up but lost him, also caught a few schoolie Kingfish. Lots of action and lots of good eating fish all in half a day.