We have had a long stretch of unsettled weather featuring South and Southeast winds of 15-20 knots combined with lots of rain, squalls and thunder storms which has no doubt disrupted plenty of fishing trips over the last several weeks. As we move deeper into hurricane season there seems little relief in sight. Early forecasting suggests that steering currents are favorable for the so called Cape Verde storms to track more consistently to the west in our direction rather than veering to the north as they did last season. Vigilance is the watch word. The offshore fishing report is pretty mediocre of late. Most of the Dolphin around are small, either side of the 20 inch minimum, with larger fish far and few between. The best action of late has been inshore from the reef edge to about 300’. Mixed in with the dolphin have been plenty of Little Tunny- particularly on the shallow side with a few small and medium Blackfin Tuna primarily outside of 250’. There are also scattered Wahoo bites in this depth as well as the occasional Sail. A week or so ago we did catch and release a Blue Marlin of about 175 pounds, the first Blue we’d seen all spring.

Fishing on the reef edge has been inconsistent, owing in large measure to rapid changes in the current condition along the reef. In the space of a week we’ve had everything from roaring East tide to no tide to West tide. With the prevailing Southeast wind a medium West tide has been best for Yellowtailing. Grey or Mangrove Snapper are spawning this month and have already been biting decently in spots from 45’ to 60’. The Mutton Snapper have also been active here and there, although their spawning activity is petering out. This is a good time of year to fish the sunset and early evening parts of the day when it’s a little cooler. All in all, the next couple of months is probably not a bad time to accept your buddy’s offer to come fish with him “up north”. The Florida Keys may be the fishing capitol of the world, but the summer months are not our best. Good luck and tight lines.

Capt. Brad Simonds