Not a bad day with the wind, we were promised better and better didn't arrive until the afternoon but it  got very nice by  1:00 or so.
Got lucky again today as the wind was north and the current was fairly strong. We were able to anchor down, catch the yellowtails and go dropping later after the wind let up. Mixed bag of fish including yelloweye snapper, fat vemillon snapper, a mutton snapper and a few rose porgies.
CP and Dave had a friendly competition going all day with Dave out fishing CP on the tails but CP with the hot rod on the deep fish.
Always a pleasure fishing with CP and we will see him again in a couple weeks.

Now they say the wind will come down tomorrow but fortunately the waves didn't bother these guys. Bob and his buds are from Delaware and say they fish rough seas all the time, so the bigger the better.
A lot of boat struggled today with a very light sailfish bite and current into the wind but we managed a pretty decent day with our limit of vermillion snapper, three mutton snapper and a couple yellowtail off the bottom. Missed a couple big fish with the shark getting one and getting rocked up with another but that's all part of the fishing game.
Tomorrow is supposed to have less wind but then so was today. I know they will be right one of these days.

A little more wind today became a problem for one of these gentlemen today. Hard to believe when looking at these smiling faces but it's true, one of them did succumb. The reef was very quite today, I only heard of a couple sails being caught and not much else, so my decision to go deep was the right one.
Found another good spot for the vemillon snapper and we even caught a decent silk snapper and  rose porgy. The american red snappers were biting also but we will have to wait till they open that season again before we can keep those. Additionally a 30 lb amberjack tried to eat a vermillon snapper on the down rod and ended up on these folks dinner table instead.
Looking for a little less wind tomorrow. We'll see.

The day started nicely with a couple of gaffer mahi under a frigate bird. We pulled the wahoo stuff up to the vermillon spot and although the wahoos were not biting for us the verms were. Caught a dozen of them and headed inside to a shallower spot looking for a grouper or mutton. The water was really discolored but we did catch one mutton and few other scallywags. Decided to put out the kites for the last hour or so and two salfish later we headed home.
Curtis, Kevin, Dave, Pete and Bruce will be back again tomorrow for a second go. Hopefully the fish will be as cooperative.

Caught this blackfin tuna in 60 ft of water the other day. Tina had to rest after spending 30 minutes getting this fish to the boat. Her husband John and the friend Barry caught yellowtail and assorted other fish in the outing but Tina's tuna was the outstanding catch of the day.

The English are here! Paul, Mary and their family had a great bite of snapper this afternoon starting with the vermillon and finishing up with some really fat yellowtail snapper. Wasn't sure if the verms were still in my spots but we caught 17  at the first place I stopped and left them biting. We had to go to a 2nd yellowtail spot after the big ones stopped biting at the 1st place but ended up with a nice catch of yellowtail snapper also.

Little Ryan caught this 3 lb yellowtail this morning while fishing with us on a morning half. He and his family are down here for a family wedding and decided to get out and do a little fishing before the festivities. We had plenty of nice tails by morning's end and they planned on a nice snapper dinner for the entourage .

The old saying "red sky in morn sailor be warned" would have applied yesterday as the wind was up around 20 to 25 knots and it was even rougher than I anticipated. We got out, caught bait and started catching a few fish when I got the word... head back to the dock.
Wind is down today, looking forward to a longer fishing day tomorrow.

Todd text me yesterday morning and wanted to know if I could take his family out fishing again but this time on an evening shark trip. I was a little apprehensive as our last evening trip was really slow. Water temps hadn't changed much in the last few days so with crossed fingers I agreed to take them.
It started with a couple small sharks, followed by a big tarpon (pulled the hook), a black tip (that we caught), some screaming runs by sharks we couldn't stop and finally two sharks that we caught that had to have been 200 lbs or better. We also caught a few other smaller sharks along the way and Wells got to reel in a shark and put the hurt on some  of the bait stealing jacks that had been harassing during the evening.
Sarah-K  (the birthday girl) caught one of the largest shark as did her brother Pat. Sonya (mom) decided not to park the boat for me when we returned to the dock but said she would next time.  Todd just enjoyed the the evening while getting in on some of the action.
Great family and good times!

Wells (top) and Sara-K are sisters that fished with us today along with mom, dad and bro. Sara-K turns 21 tomorrow and we tried hard to find her a birthday sail but had to settle for this nice mutton snapper (much better eating Sara-k). Wells caught THE biggest yellowtail snapper ever and you can tell it was the biggest by the smile on this girls face. What a wonderful spirit this special lady has.
We really enjoyed having Todd and his family out with us today and hope to see them again next summer when the mahi are here.

Unlike yesterday conditions were not ideal for yellowtailing, the current was into the wind and the trash fish were enjoying our baits before they got to the yellowtail. It took a little tactical change but we were able to catch 20 tails in a couple hours and then moved on from there. Missed some kings, caught one, and caught a few other fish while working my way to the vermillon spot. The verms were biting so it didn't take long to be done with them. I had Dave put out the kites for the last hour and 20 minutes after getting the kites out we got the sail bite. Nice way to finish up the day.

After a week of wind and rain we finally caught a break. Originally from New Jersey and now residing in Colorado Chris and his family picked the right day to fish with good weather and hungry fish.
The yellowtail conditions couldn't have been much better and we caught 40 in and hour or so. There were a few kingfish around and Mike and Chris fought a big shark for 45 minutes until the shark decided to turn them loose. Missed a half-hearted bite from a sail toward the end of our 3/4 day and that was the only sail we saw.
Looking forward to a few days of fishing in the next week, nice to get back out there after all that bad weather.