Caught some really nice yellowtail today, right up until the sharks started eating everyone we hooked up. Guess Irma didn't chase the sharks away..... just left them hungry.
CP and his wife Trish came down on a quick trip to assess damage to their condo and while Trish was busy lining up contractors to get the condo back in order, CP was assessing the storm's effect on the local yellowtail population. Good thing Yellowtail is Trish's favorite eating fish!

Put the KKIV back in her slip today and I can't tell you how good it felt to be back. We are fishing tomorrow afternoon and on Saturday so I will be starting those fishing up again.
​ There is still a lot of cleanup going on and it will go on for months but the keys are on their way back.

The KKIV is out of the mangoves and resting comfortably behind our house. No damage to the boat from her week in the trees and tomorrow we put the riggers and rods back on her.
Whale habor has no water or power and hopefully most of the debris has been cleared out of the marina. We will try going back to the slip on monday as i have some folks interested in fishing mahi next week.
Feels like we are making some progress back to normal.

Two days and counting until Irma arrives. I feel good about the KK, she is deep in a mangrove canal with a dozen lines attached to her and the trunks of mangroves. There is probably 25 charter boats tied up back in this creek and we all hope to come through this with just some minor damage. The house is as secure as I can make it and we are leaving the keys to ride it out farther inland.
I will post after the storm and hopefully be back fishing in a week or so.
Captain Don

These guys surprised me today because yesterday they were at a wedding and no one got seasick today. Not sure they were all feeling well but no one showed any signs, smart guys!
We ended up 18 miles off shore in some big weed patches and there was lots of nice fish. Not sure what happened between the first school and the second but lets say it was good there was enough fish around to make up for all the ones that were missed. In the end it didn't matter as we put over 40 mahi in the fish box and there was more than enough fillets for those big fish fries they had planned.

Greg and his one son both caught tarpon tonight, his other son Colin jumped a big one off. We also caught 3 sharks on a very busy Labor Day weekend with lots of boat traffic.
Greg is already planning a trip back to the KK this spring during spring break.

Steve and Lisa fished with me last year when mahi fishing was slow but they came back this year and got to experience some of the very best mahi fishing in a great mahi year.
We caught 27 fish out of the 1st school I found at 8:30 this morning, a little later I found another school with even nicer fish and we caught enough to reach our limit. Steve and Lisa's friends, Tim and Veronica had never mahi fished before so it was trial by fire on the 1st go round but by the 2nd school they were acting like seasoned mahi warriors.
We have had some really good mahi fishing this whole summer and right now there are a lot of big schools of nice fish, I have quite a few open days in the next two weeks so it would be a great time to gather up your friends, plan a quick trip to the keys and get in on some of this great fishing.

Rain and swirling winds this morning as we were leaving so I decided not to stay on the reef where snapper fishing would have been difficult to say the least.
We found mahi just before we got to the hump, caught a few and then found a piece of debis that had some good fish on it. Should have had another 6 or 7 fish but it was one of those days we just could not  keep the hooks in them. We did end up with a decent catch of mahi and a few blackfin tuna, not bad for a half day in the rain.

Another day where I just wasn't finding fish early. We caught a half dozen tunas at the hump but I just couldn't seem to find any mahi. Around 10 o'clock we found a few nice ones followed an hour later by a huge school of heavy lifters and gaffers. Mike, Nicky and our tag-along, Patrick did a great job of staying untangled and we soon had our limit with Nicky catching the big one (it's almost always the lady). Did a little dropping after that but didn't do a whole lot.
Another great day on the KK!