Seems like most of the population on New Jersey is in the keys these days. Joe and his group are from north central Jersey and happy to be spending some time here.
We tried a lot of things today, really wanted to catch a sail but settled for a nice catch of yellowtail snapper. Just leaving the snapper spot when I spotted two sails in the shallow water but it was not to be. The best we can say is that everyone got a good look at them before they swam away. ...next time Joe.

Patrick was our main fish catcher this afternoon and although the youngest person on board was a very accomplished angler. Always great to see a young person with skills  well beyond his age. Thanks Doc for bringing your family to fish on the KK and we will be seeing you all again soon.

CP has now set a precedent by arriving on time for our morning half and although I was shocked for a moment, i realized this was probably due to the fact that I had an afternoon charter booked and he knows I'm never late twice in one day.
We had a great morning half, catching a bunch of yellowtail in mixed sizes and then did went out and did some dropping. Caught jacks, porgies,triggers and a couple really nice red snapper in 300ft before returning to the dock for our second half.

We started strong, catching a couple mangroves, a cero mackeral and 20 yellowtail snapper but the afternoon got slow both when we tried the kingfish and the muttons snapper(caught 1 undersized). We went deep dropping but that didn't work out much better. On the bright side there was more than enough fish for a couple dinners and Dan and the guys really enjoyed the day. See you next year guys!

Janos, his wife and friends from eastern Europe caught king fish today on our morning half. Janos wasn't feeling well most of the morning and since he was our translator it made Dave's job a little more interesting. All is well that ends well and everyone was happy at the end of the day (including Janos).

Ellie's brother Lee caught a sailfish with us a couple days ago and tonight we took them shark fishing. I don't believe there was more than a 15  minute lull in the action all evening and of course a little friendly competition between brother and sister also was evident.
What a great family, we really enjoyed having them with us for a day and an evening.

Bait was a struggle this morning but we finally caught enough to go and the kingfish bite was a pick. Lindsey  caught this 20 pounder but her son Lee had a difficult time getting his hookups to the boat. We tried the yellowtails and started out strong but the sharks moved in and started eating everything we hooked. It was a half and we had enough for dinner for the group but not a very stellar day. 

A little king fishing, a little deep dropping and we put together a pretty good catch on a short day today. The rose porgies were some of the largest I have caught in a long time and it was nice to see them. The triggers harassed us but several of them made mistakes and therefore we were able to add them to the dinner menu also. Additional we caught a black grouper and a true red, perhaps soon they will open the season for us on them.

Lee lost his father a year and a half ago and although Lee's father wasn't here physically he was here in spirit as Lee hooked and caught his first sailfish. His mother and sister were cheering him on on another beautiful day to be on the water.
They are fishing an evening trip with us on Sunday and if the bite is half as good as it was this evening he will be a very busy fisherman.

When Steve contacted me from the UK, he told me that he really wanted to catch a large shark... we didn't disappoint him.
We did a few other things before trying for the shark and caught a variety of fish including kingfish, vermillon, red, silk and mutton snapper, grouper, porgies, almaco jacks and amberjack. Finally ending up at the hump where on our 1st drop we hooked this 200 lb sandbar shark. It took Steve about 45 minutes to get it to the boat, we got some pictures, released it and watched it happily swim away.
Another gorgeous day on the water with very light winds and hardly a ripple on the water. What a great weather month February has been!

Luke caught a 40 lb king out of the kite today on mono. Thought it was a blackfin tuna when it exploded on the bait and it fought like a tuna ,staying down, trying to get in front of the boat but it turned out to be a very large kingfish.
Also caught the vermillon snapper again today  along with some almaco jacks, a mutton snapper and 3 amberjacks. Even mom got in the act and caught herself an AJ!
Nice folks and we look forward to fishing with them again soon.

Diane and Carl spent an evening out in Whale Harbor channel with us hoping to catch something big. Diane never expected the sharks to be over a hundred pounds and take 45 minutes of hard work to get them up to the boat. Be careful what you wish for Diane!

John, Shannaz and Lisa put a hurting on the vermillon snapper today. John also caught a nice blackfin tuna off the kite while we were sailfishing but we never saw a sail today.

Caught the kings and snapper with these three gentlemen last week. We tried the deep stuff but the current was just too strong, so we ended up back on the reef where there was no current and had to catch the snapper using the oat balls.

This doesn't happen very often but it did today. Brian and his guys wanted showers and to go to the grocery store to pick up things to cook their fish dinner tonight and were out of there before I could get a picture of them with the fish they caught. I borrowed these to guys who were walking down the dock and they were more then willing to pose with the catch.
In the morning we started with the kings and up came the sail which Chris caught.  From there we hit a deep drop spot and unlike the other day they were biting well. Brian wanted to try sail fishing again and so we went back to the reef for the afternoon. We only got one more opportunity and I thought we were going to get him but 20 feet from the boat he made another jump and the hook came free.
Another beautiful day with the temps around 74 degrees and light winds.

The Day started the way you would want, bait was easy and we were just putting our 1st kite bait out when a sail piled on it, unfortunately the end result wasn't what we were looking for. The fish got tangled up in the leader, tail walking right at the boat and we never got the hook in him. 30 second after that happened another fish ate the rigger bait with almost the exact same scenario  playing out. 0 for 2 and the day just started! Didn't see anymore sails for and hour or so and decided to go deep for the snapper, to find out they were not biting in the spots we did so well a few days ago. We ended up catching a number of almaco jacks and a amberjack and since he wind was picking up, mom wasn't feeling well and our short day was at an end, we headed back toward the marina.

Every once in a while on the evening trip the bite starts slow, you miss a couple, break one off on the bottom or you lose those first sharks for some unexplainable reason and you worrying it going to be one of "those" evenings. Fortunately Brian and his wife were patient and the shark started to bite just as the sunset was getting really spectacular.  What a great way to spend an early evening in the keys.

We met Carl last year when his wife and he travelled from their home in Ohio to the keys and rented a house near our home.
Carl was a U2 pilot among his many other accomplishments and his friend John (fished them both today) was also a former air force pilot and commercial pilot.
Carl really wanted to learn fishing techniques so today my mate Dave was the instructor. We did manage to put together a decent catch with some kingfish and snapper doing a little deep dropping, kite flying and boottom bouncing so Carl could see some of the different methods we use to catch fish.
Had a great time with them and look forward to their next visit.