A very solid day of fishing. Anchored on the reef edge in 90′ we had 25 head of large yellowtail, a 20lb Black Grouper, lots of Cero and Amberjacks and half a dozen King Mackerel, also lost a king at the boat which was over 30lbs. We finished the day slow trolling live “speedos” and caught several large Baracudas and pulled off one Wahoo.
Regular client Rick Muskovak was out with us today. We had about 20 knots of NE wind and a sloppy sea. We tried a reef spot first without much success, there wasn’t enough current to get things going though we did catch enough Yellowtail and a small mutton for dinner. At mid day we caught live Ballyhoo on a patch reef and spent a couple hours looking unsuccessfully for sailfish. Not much of a day which sometimes happens, fortunately Rick understands that fishing is not always catching, we’ll look forward to showing him a better day on his next trip.
We were back on the water today after a hiatus during which I fished the Oil Rigs off the Texas Gulf coast, and more recently Nova Scotia for giant Bluefin Tuna. (We caught up to 17 giants per day on rod and reel, but that’s another story.) With east wind gusting to 20 knots I elected to start on a 90′ reef spot which is known for large Yellowtail. We had brisk west current and the Snapper came right to the surface and we caught about 20 head of quality fish. Ballyhoo swam up in the chum slick and we had plenty of liveys with one throw of the net. We spent the last hour and a half slow trolling a 200′ color change and raised 4 Sailfish, catching a double header. All in all good fishing for what is thought of as “off season”
Several days ago in these reports I mentioned that high quality Dolphin fishing should begin any day, and it has broken loose over the last two days. Fresh east winds have the fish pouring through in 200′ to 500′ of water. Lots of frigate birds are in the air circling the migrating fish. Most of these fish are in the 12-20 pound range with a few larger fish mixed in.
We’ve been Dolphin fishing the last several days, yesterday we had 2 25lb bull dolphin along with 6 schoolies, with a north wind the fish were hard to find. The day before we had 20 Dolphin all in the 5-10 pound range. Dolphin fishing has not really gotten in high gear yet but it’s sure to start any day.
Had a great morning of Tarpon fishing today. We had 7 fish on and caught 4, 2 on 12 pound test. all of the fish were in the 80lb size range.
Sailfishing has been excellent the last week or so, with catches of mulitple Sails common place. We caught 3 out of 4 today and saw several others that wouldn’t bite.
We had a pretty interesting day today fishing along a color change in about 120′. Our catch included 2 sails, several dolphin, and 4 Cobia including 2 which were 45lbs. The cobia were caught off of migrating Whale Sharks, we found 3 of these huge ( 30feet long)slow moving giants during the course of the day.
Tailing and migrating Sailfish highlight the fishing action over the last 4 or 5 days. On Fri March 19 Don Prebola and friends caught 7 Sailfish on a 3/4 day. Live baits fished along a color change produced 3 double headers and a single. In addition another 4 Sails were raised that didn’t bite. The following day, Sat March 20th the wind swung into the east and Sailfish were tailing along the powder blue edge. In half a day we saw a dozen and cast live baits in front of them. We caught one but the rest refused to eat! Exciting none the less to hunt for tailers and then cast to them. A few Cobia, Tuna and Tunney also tailing.
After an extended period of cold temps with lots of N wind we have experienced a warming trend during the last week. On Tues March 9th we fished a color change and found tailing Sailfish. We saw about 15 on the day but only caught 1 as most of the fish refused to eat even live bait. The color change was also full of Little Tunny and the occasional Dolphin. Thurs March 11 on a half day we fished the color change again, this time with strong SE wind. The schoolie Dolphin were thick and we caught 18 averaging 6-7 pounds as well as a couple of Tunny and a Cero. We also saw a couple of Sails neither would bite.
