Steve and his family had a short day last year when they fished the KKIV, it was rough and a few of them ended up not feeling well, but today was totally different. The wind didn't come up till noon and that gave us time to catch a 9 lb triple tail, a dozen nice mahi and return to the reef  (and calmer water) in the afternoon for 15 or so yellowtail snapper.
Steve has us scheduled for another trip this Friday and I hope the breezy days are gone by then.

Robert brought some friends with him today and the vote was to go mahi fishing, which worked out ok although it was a pick of fish. We saw quite a few but the majority were undersized and by noon decided to do a little dropping. We found the silk snapper in the 400 ft depth, catching one releally nice one and 8 mediums.
Tomorrow the wind starts but it really doesn't start to crank until Wednesday the start of grouper season, Fun Fun!

 Bob, Kim and their son have fish the KK for many years and have had great catches with us on numerous occasions but today turned out to be very special.
Thing started tough as reef conditions were not great and the wind was out of the north making mahi fishing a question mark. We decided to go for it and got out to 600 ft where there were a few frigate birds shadowing mahi. We had missed a couple mahi and we were circling back when the marlin showed up and tried to eat every lure and bait we were pulling. He finally settled on a ballyhoo in the outrigger and after putting on a great show for amost a hour we were able to get him up alongside the KK for the release.
Congratulations  to Mark who did a great job fighting the marlin and congratulations the Bob who caught a 20 lb bull mahi but got over shadowed by the much bigger fish.

Niko, his father-in-law Rollin and Tyler caught their limit of big vermillon snapper, some fat yellowtail and assorted other species on another gorgeous day on the water. No current again but we stayed on the reef long enough to catch some tails and then spent the rest of our shortened day catching \ silk,  vermillon snapper and trying to get an AJ by those hungry sharks.

The boys from GAF had another pink snapper day. I had a day like this with another GAF group last week  and these guys did it again. There was no current on the reef so after running the edge looking for a wahoo to no avail, we ran out  to a few spots where the vermillons were biting and ended up with a really good catch of the pink ones. Eventually we got to the hump and managed to get one AJ passed the sharks along with one rudderfish.
Another beautiful day out on the water with a great group of guys!

Todd and Julie wanted Mahi and tuna and we found some but not many yesterday. We did find a bunch of mahi that were  undersized  but enough legals for a few meals and fresh tuna to go with.

Mary Lynn is finally smiling with this huge yellowtail after a rough half day on the water with her husband Joe, CP and Chris. We had a south wind and a northwest current that pulled us around just enough to put us in the trough at times and make it a little uncomfortable. Caught the tails and a big king along with assorted other stuff and although Mary Lynn was a trooper and didn't complain, CP decided after 4 hrs or so that perhaps it was time to get her back to the dock.
See all you guys again in a couple weeks!

So happy once again to have Mr Don on board the KKIV again and he brought his son CP and one of his grandsons (Christopher) along with him. Chris was high hook today catching the biggest yellowtail and the most in our half day outing.
CP will be back again next month with more of the family and as always we look forward to their next visit.

Ferdy came all the way from the Netherlands to fish with the KK on an evening Shark trip. Actually Ferdy was vacationing in the keys and gave me a call because he wanted to hook into something almost as big as him.
We caught 5 big sharks and one diamond ray for the evening and had a really good time with our new friend from the Netherlands.

Amanda wanted snapper for dinner, or should I say dinners. The tails were not very cooperative so we headed out to the deep to try the silk snapper and although they started somewhat small we were able to find a bunch of decent size fish for Amanda as her hubby to crank up.

Split party today with Mitch and Susan from Texas and Steve from Michigan ( where it is still snowing ). No current so the tails didn't bite well but we caught close to our limit and a good time was had by all , including mate Dave who got invited in for the picture.

When the yellowtail snapper go into spawn mode they get a lot easier to catch and with almost perfect conditions and the spawning it was as good as it gets. Our group from GAF caught 30 or so and  we added to the snapper catch with another ten vermillons out in the deeper water.

A 50 lb AJ on conventional  tackle can be tough but Brant caught this one on a spinning rod and it wore him down. Short day yesterday and current into the wind, so we went for broke and managed to catch a few nice vermillon snapper and the AJ to put smiles on their faces.

Another fast and furious evening out in whale harbor channel with a couple serious fishermen. Bailey really wanted a big shark but his dad Bill kept hooking up the large ones. It wasn't until the evening was almost over that Bailey got tied up with one over 100 lbs, I'm still not sure what was going on but Bailey didn't want a rod belt and I'm positive ended up with a huge bruise after fighting that big shark.... kids!!
Another good night on the water with a father and son team.

Collin was feeling the burn last evening, cranking in that big shark he wanted to catch but he wasn't going to give up that rod for anything or anyone.
Another great family from Michigan down in the keys to escape their never ending winter up there. It was a great evening catching shark after shark for all that wanted to catch one.

Pretty evening out in whale harbor channel with John, Nick and Maria. Lots of sharks but not much happening with the tarpon yet.

Tony called me up this morning wanting to know if I was available which most days would be a no but I happened to have an open day. Tried the permit at the wreck to start but did not see them and ended up at the tarpon hole where the yellowtails bit very well. Great family with more kids that love to fish.

Only the second lemon shark I've caught in whale harbor channel in all the years I've fished it was caught last evening. We had neighbors Vickie, Drew and Ginny out with us and while the wind and rain livened things up for an hour or so a good time was had by all.

These guys are serious anglers. Lori told me that her two boys were fishing fanatics and she made a believer out of me on the evening trip today. It was a lot slower then last evening but we did catch some smaller sharks early and one humongous one late to finish up.

John wanted to catch something big, so we were swinging for the walls this morning after catching our ballyhoo and looking for that April sailfish bite. Fortunately there has been a decent late bite this year and 15 minutes after we got the baits out, up came our sailfish. Unfortunately this fish was big and mean and the battle raged on for quite a while until we were able to finally get the release.
We spent a little time after that battle to catch dinner and then finally had to take the guys back the marina so they could catch that plane ride to NJ.

John is pretty happy hooked up again with a big shark. Anthony, Joe and their sons will sleep well tonight after getting wore down catching sharks with us this evening. Hopefully we will get to wear them down again tomorrow on some more big fish.

More good fun with Tammy, her kids and related kids on the afternoon trip. We had clean water but the yellows still bit amazingly well. We had a couple folks not feeling well and shortened the trip a bit but overall these guys { and Girl ) did great, learning the art of yellowtail fishing in difficult conditions.

Kyle, Kyle's son and Kyle's sad all caught snapper with us today on our morning half. Tried the yellowtailing first but there was no current so we ended up bouncing the bottom and these nice muttons found us

Another fun evening on the water with 3 young adults and the mom and dad. Numerous big sharks were hooked up and caught but the highlight was a 40 lb tarpon that we caught at the very end of the trip
I don't see any cold fronts headed our way in the near future to drop the water temps so hopefully this will be the start of our tarpon run this year.

On morning many years ago ago Dr Joe, his wife Suzanne and another couple left Tavernier in their boat to go fishing. It was rough, their boat took on water and sank  in 300 ft of water with no one in sight.
I was working on a boat called the Challenger at the time and late that afternoon we were returning home after a day of fishing. We had heard no reports from the Coast Guard of a boat sinking but fortunately heard them yelling over the sound of our engines, located them and got them safely on board. Needless to say they were very happy to see us.
I had fished with them a number of times  on the Challenger over the years but this was the first time they fished with me on the KKIV. Joe said it had been 23 years since that fateful day but he had recently sold his boat and planned on many more trips with us in the future.