Yearly Archives: 2010

More crazy weather, it’s cold it’s hot it’s blowing hard, it’s flat calm. Quite a challenge to keep up with conditions over the last several weeks. Bait has been difficult of late so we have resorted to catching it at night and penning it for future use. Regular client Rick Muskovac fished a 3/4 day on Wed 2/24 and wanted good eating fish to take home. We started on the reef edge, heavy chumming for Yellowtail and picked at a few large tails but the water temp was too cold to really get them going, and large predetors were eating some of them off the hook. We did have one 10lb Mutton Snapper and a couple of Kings to go along with the Yellowtail. At mid day we got off the anchor and slow trolled a color change and current line in 120′ using live Ballyhoo and large Pilchards. We hooked a double header of Sails in short order, catching one and pulling the hook on the other close to the boat. Schoolie Dolphin attacked the baits a couple of times and we added several to the fish box before calling it a day at 2:30.

More good fishing over the last week in part attributable to the increased availability of live Thread Herring for bait. Rick Crandell and a group from Chicago had so much fun on Monday with Smoker Kings, Amberjack, Yellowtail Snapper and assorted Cero and Tunny that they booked a second day on Tuesday during which they caught 30 head of large Yellowtail, a 31 lb African Pompano and a limit of Kingfish.

We have had very decent fishing over the last week. A mixed bag of King Mackerel up to the mid 30lb size, Numerous Blacktip Sharks, Cero, Bonito, Yellowtail Snapper, Mutton Snapper and Red and Scamp Grouper have comprised many of the catches. On a couple of days featuring blue water we have caught Sails and Dolphin as well. The Tuna action is subsiding, with only a couple caught during the last week.

John and Dennis Chia flew all the way from England with the hope of chumming Blackfin Tuna. Owing to the sustained cold weather however, no Pilchards were available for chum so we had to go to plan B. We began on the reef edge with live shrimp, jigs and cut bait and produced good action from Cero, King, Tunney and Yellowtail before reanchoring on a patch reef to catch live Ballyhoo. The slow trolled live Ballyhoo produced more Cero and Tunney before finally raising a quadruple header of Sailfish of which we caught and released a triple.

Key West along with the rest of the country has been experiencing an extended cold snap over the last 10 days. High temps in the mid 50’s and blustery North winds have been the typical condition since Christmas, and yet fishing has been outstanding. Most of our trips of late have featured non stop action from a variety of species including King Mackerel, Cero Mackerel, and Little Tunney. Our catch has also included some Tuna, and Yellowtail Snapper. We also released a Goliath Grouper estimated between 150 and 200 lbs. Largest King in the last week was a very respectable 43 pounds. A note about the North wind here in Key West, it does not produce a rough sea because the Keys form a natural lee, again and again our clients were amazed by how calm the seas were in spite of the wind velocity. Stop wishing come out fishing!