8/31/2020 0 Comments Fast FishingJohn and Sue were supposed to fish with us last Thursday but John had a problem and they couldn't go. Today was another one in a string of great weather days and a perfect day for John and Sue to do an off shore trip.
Caught the pilchards, went to the hump and once again the tunas bit, unfortunately Sue had problems getting the tunas up quick enough to beat the sharks so after catching five we headed off to find some mahi. About a mile from the hump I found a set of birds and there was a large school of mahi under them. We called another boat in as there were plenty of fish and after 45 minutes or so we counted up our catch a realized we had reach our limit on mahi. John said they had all the fish they needed for today and we trolled our way home. Tomorrow we try the reef for the snappers.
0 Comments
8/30/2020 0 Comments Another BeautyThe weather has been on it's best behavior the last few days after hurting us a bit last week and the fishing continues to be good.
Started with the tunas again , did well there and then went looking for the mahi. Once again had to find that one piece of debris that held a good number of mahi and we succeeded in catching most of our mahi off that one piece. Later we also found a couple other schools that either were borderline size wise or refused our offerings and we only caught a few out of each of them. Charlie, Cat and Adam did a masterful job of catching the their fish and they were warming up the vacuum packer while I was still filleting fish. Enjoy Folks! 8/29/2020 0 Comments Find The Debris, Find The FishCaught the tunas again at the hump once again and with a little help from another boat we found a good group of mahi under a small 2 x 4. Found some more under a plastic bag and another group we couldn't get to eat under a piece of styrofoam.
Good group of guys today that was headed up by Phil who's wife had set up the charter for his birthday. That was back in February, then of course Covid arrived and the keys round block went up and other stuff came up that kept them from coming down but they finally got the right day and a great day it was. 8/28/2020 0 Comments Fishing AgainAfter a lot of wind and a cancellation early this week, today we finally got to go fishing. This was a two boat group and both groups did well making everyone happy with plenty of fish for them to take back to Ohio. We caught our limit of tuna at the Islamorada hump in the morning and 30 mahi off a pallet in the afternoon and all of that made our day.
We will see these guys again next year and possibly a few of them late this year for the sailfish season. Thanks again guys! 8/23/2020 0 Comments Not The Quiet before The StormWith tropical storm Laura slated to brush the keys tomorrow, normally we would get some really nice weather before the storm get close, that's not the way it was yesterday. With the gulf stream in close and the wind from the east at 18 knots or so it was fishable but still very rough. Wes (big guy to the right) and Rufus (skinny guy to the left) were our only anglers for most of the day with an occasional appearance by one of the others.
Once again the tunas bit well and although the sharks got some, we got more to the boat. We struggled a little with the mahi but then started finding some bigger schools and by the end of the day had put 25 in the fish box. There were 6 other boats involved in this company trip and we hope to see this group again next year but with better weather. 8/21/2020 0 Comments The Sharks Were NastyMike and his crew fished with us about a year ago after purchasing a trip we had donated to the Tara Miller Melanoma Foundation. Last time we fish yellowtail snapper on a half day, today they decided to do a full day and see if we catch the tuna and mahi.
The sharks were brutal on our first pass over the hump, we were unable to get a single tuna passed them. We were successful on our next few passes and limited out after a few more boats showed up and spread the shark out. The mahi took some time but we finally found some debris we gave us a good start and then a turtle which had some nicer fish fish on it. Mike will be back with his family to fish with us again and Dave and I will be looking forward to it. 8/20/2020 0 Comments Stayed on The ReefHad another fun day with Doc and Patsy and although we stayed on the reef most of the day it was very busy. Caught our limit of yellowtail, a few vermillons, bunch of bonitas and some yellow jacks and never got deeper than 200 feet . We caught most of our tails on the small pilchards which is a lot of fun as the come to the surface chasing the pilchards and then we throw a pilchard with a hook into the middle of them. It's a lot like catching tunas with the pilchards and you catch some of the bigger tails doing it that way.
Patsy and Doc will be back (probably this fall) to go out on another fish killing event. Always a Pleasure! 8/18/2020 0 Comments Second Day With Doc and PatsyAnother fun day with the Duncans, although today we concentrated on the mahi after catching our tunas. We found several packs of fish through out the morning and by noon we had caught our limit of 20 fish. Thursday Doc wants to stay on the reef and do the snapper thing so I hope there is current early and then dies off in a couple hours so we can catch the vermillons. Should be fun!
8/18/2020 2 Comments 1 For 1Only one tarpon bite this evening but lots of activity with sharks, rays and barracudas. We had Stephanie, Robert and their son, Nathan out with us and we kept them busy catching, all evening. Lost count of the number of sharks but it did include a couple lemons and the tarpon of course was the highlight with Richard doing a great job catching it.
See you again soon folks! 8/16/2020 0 Comments Big TunasDr Mike and his lovely wife Patsy were on board today and we took them right to the hump after filling our live wells with pilchards. Dave could barely get the net over the side of the boat it was so full of baits and we headed straight out to the hump to feed them to the tunas. We had Doc hustling from one side of the boat to the other as Dave would net one tuna and have another hooked up in the other corner for Doc to catch.
From there we headed back inshore to catch some snapper and one large margate. One thing we did that Mike had never experienced was to catch yellowtail snapper on the live pilchards. It's a lot of fun if conditions are right and although the conditions were only partially good we still managed to catch quite a few. We still have a couple more days with Mike and Patsy but they are taking tomorrow off. 8/15/2020 0 Comments YoseaYosea brought a few of his associates to fish with us today and a great time was had by all. These guys haven't done a whole lot of fishing and we had a bit of a learning curve to climb over at the start but we saw a huge improvement in their technique after catching a few fish (at least for almost all). By the time we headed back we had close to 30 yellowtail snapper and additionally a couple stories about the big ones that got away.
8/14/2020 0 Comments Not Quite As GoodWell, the tunas bit well and we got enough passed the sharks to limit out on them. I then drove out to same distance we were yesterday where we found all those nice fish but they were not there, very few birds, not much weed and a long way back to the shallow water made for a frustrating few hours. We did find some fish back in 500 ft but it was a struggle for us. The boats that found debris did pretty well, unfortunately we were not a boat that was that lucky but we still had plenty of fish.
8/13/2020 0 Comments Ken's First BlackfinKen told me in the morning that he had never personally caught a blackfin tuna, he can't say that anymore as we caught our limit of ten blackfins today and really nice size tuna at that. We also found and caught 30 mahi today, most of which were heavy lifters and gaffers and they were actually eating the ballyhoo on the riggers, which we haven't had them do the last few weeks. This is a very positive change in their behavior, making it easier to get and stay with the fish.
Ken, Al, Dean and Gary are with us again tomorrow and hopefully the wind will come down a little, I know Gary is hoping so. 8/12/2020 0 Comments Late TripCourtney call me a couple days ago and wanted to fish with us, unfortunately the only availability I had was this afternoon but she did say that would work.
Tried yellowtailing to start but there was no current and before I got to frustrated we made the move out to to vermillon spots. We caught various fish, 4 or 5 American reds, different species of jacks, a trigger fish and a few silk snapper. Courtney and her brother were very happy with their catch and Courtney planning her next fishing trip on the KK to be with her fiance. 8/11/2020 0 Comments 3 For 5Non stop is all I can say about this evenings charter. We had a couple tarpon on right from the start, missed both of them, caught the next one about an hour later and at the very end of the night hooked two more, catching one fairly quickly but spending a good half hour backing down the channel to catch the second and last one.
Tyler(13) and Ryan(11) were quick studies and got lots of practice with the sharks before finally catching their tarpons. We will be looking forward to seeing you guys soon, maybe for an off shore trip next time. 8/11/2020 0 Comments Really Short DayThought I was going to have the morning off but I then received a call for a half day charter from the booking office and off we went.
Yosea and his buddy Phillip wanted to catch some fish for the experience and were not really interested in getting fish to eat. Needless to say I don't get a lot of these types of request, especially in the summer time but always ready to please the client we we out to see what we could do. We were catching vermillons to start and Phillip announced he was not feeling well, Yosea told us to head back and that was it for our half day charter. We did keep a few snapper so the two of them could have a nice fresh fish lunch at Wahoo's and they were happy we did. Yosea is coming back this Saturday but I'm pretty sure Phillip won't be with him. See you then Yosea. 8/10/2020 0 Comments Short DayVivian has been trying to get her son and his friends out fishing with us for almost a month and today the weather was to her liking and off we went.
Netted the pilchards this morning and took them to the hump where there was a good bite of blackfin tunas. It didn't take long to get our limit of 12 tunas but because the mahi bite has not been great I worked back into the reef finding a few mahis along the way in the shallow water. We finished up the day catching vermillon and silk snapper before running out of time and heading in to the marina. Almost all the guys were headed off to their first year of college this month ( with the exception of Vivian and Alfonso's son who will be attending class virtually). It will be a different experience for all of them than it's been for any passed freshmen class. Good luck Guys. 8/8/2020 0 Comments Went For The Snapper,We went out there today to catch some mahi and then to come back toward the reef and catch some snapper. The mahi were really frustrating me as once again they were chasing the flyers and not coming to the baits so after a few hours of that we decided to head in and catch snapper.
Kyle was our verm master today, it took a little time to get through the learning curve but once he figured that out it was game on catching the majority of all the big vermillons and a lot of the silk snapper. He also caught the biggest vermillon and one of the biggest I've ever seen. Great time with Rick, Bruce, Kyle and Roger as always and as always we look forward to their next fishing trip 8/7/2020 0 Comments A Little More DifficultThe mahi fishing was a little more challenging for us and for a lot of the charter fleet today. We struggled to catch them as the were moving fast and when we did find a big school we were only able to get a few of them to eat. Fortunately we were able to put a decent catch of mahi together by the end of the day and caught enough tuna for the guys tuna appetizer tonight. Redly, Hayden, Adrian and Dave were great and we will see them again in the future.
8/6/2020 0 Comments August 06th, 2020We started at the hump trying the tunas on the troll but they were not cooperating so I was about to start live baiting for them when I saw a set of birds under which we found 8 schoolie mahi. We continues on in the same depth catching a few here and there and by 9:30 we had almost 20 fish. It got a bit more difficult after that but by noon we had our limit of 30 mahi and it was time to start heading that way.
John and his father Tom are repeat customers and although Richard is also he hasn't fish with us since 2013. Don't know why he waited so long to come back but we are glad he did. 8/6/2020 0 Comments 2 For 3Adrian brought his two boys but Dave was the one that had never caught a tarpon and so was the one to get the first shot. He had many on but had never got one to the boat, this evening he got his first tarpon catch. Lots of boat traffic and we had both anchors out so the first few minutes were very intense but we survived that, chased him down the channel and finally caught him about half way to the headpin. The second fish was easier and we didn't have to come off the anchor for Hayden to catch that one.
Tomorrow we have an off shore trip with this group and it should be fun. 8/5/2020 0 Comments Second DayMost everything we tried today worked, some better than other as usual. We Started with the yellowtails, there was not much current where we were and the sharks were brutal but we we still caught some. Next we tried the vermillon snapper, the first spot had only red snapper but the second had more of the big vermillons we have been catching over the last week or so. One spot we tried had legal silk snapper and we took a half a dozen of those to add to our catch. The guys wanted to try the mahi again today so we headed out and found 6 schoolies on birds in 500 ft. I was just starting to look again when another boat invited us to come in on a school he had found and we caught another 9 or 10 to finish up the day.
The guys loved the catches both today and yesterday and of course will be back to do it again perhaps even this year. We were missing one of our regulars on this trip but we look forward to seeing our friend Curtis on the next one. 8/4/2020 0 Comments WahooBeen a while since we caught a wahoo and the funny thing was that just this morning Duncan was asking about wahoos and the best time of the year to catch them. I guess August is the best time, at least for this group! Duncan brings his guys down a few times a year, although this year he has had to reschedule a once or twice due to the virus.
The tunas bit fairly well and we found a few nice mahi but the wahoo was the icing. We have one more day with the guys tomorrow and probably try the reef to start off, we will see how it goes. 8/3/2020 0 Comments The TwinsConner and Cameron returned to fish with us today. It's been about a year since we have fished with the both of them and Cameron did a lot better today then last year because of the light winds. Mike did catch the grouper first thing in the morning while we were at the mangrove spot but after that it was pretty much the twins doing the catching. We limited out on snapper, caught a few bottom sharks and reluctantly fed the aggressive bulls sharks a few of the nicer snapper, all in all a great morning half.
Mike says this will be an annual event for him and the kids. Looking forward to it Mike! |
CAPTAIN DAVEThis is Captain Dave keeping you updated on our recent fishing adventures Archives
February 2024
Categories |