Really short half day today as we had 3 out of 4 not feeling well and after catching more than enough for dinner the vote was to head home. Chris and his crew are from Washington and Oregon, have done some fishing, but that wind was a bit too much for them today.

We tried the tuna early and although we caught a bunch, none were big enough that we wanted to keep them. Tried a few deep spots as we worked back toward the reef but it wasn't till we got back to some of my shallower spots that we started catching some nice fish. Beautiful vermillon snapper, kingfish and almaco  jacks went in the fish box and released a couple small cobia and assorted other species. Andy is taking his fillets back to Missouri minus a few fillets they are having for dinner tonight.

Dean and Diane walked up to me yesterday and said they were interested in going fishing on the KK today, it seems the boat they rented had engine problems (for the second time) and they were looking for a good day on the water. I would say they got their wish, as we found a weed line in 500 ft and followed it up to the east, catching ones and twos until we found a school with 15 or so mahi and limited out. We headed back toward the reef, stopping along the way to catch our limit of vermillon snapper and finally anchoring down for the yellowtail but did not have much success with them.

All we needed was a little current to get the yellowtail really biting and although we did not get the current we still caught plenty of fish for Craig and his crew and had a great time doing it. Caught a number of AJ's and muttons after leaving the yellowtail spot and just enjoyed my first day back on the water after our Colorado break.

Pati and I were on a much needed vacation to Colorado and New Mexico the last ten days or so with our good friends Randy and Jan. We just had a wonderful time, the weather was great and the scenery was spectacular. Unfortunately all good thing must come to an end and we flew back yesterday doing the red eye out of Denver and  I'm looking forward to getting back to some good off shore fishing again.

With Captain Dave at the wheel we took Pati, Dave's wife Lisa and Dr John out for a little snapper catching. The yellowtails did not bite very well and when they did the sharks were there to eat most of them, fortunately we did not have the same problem with the vermillon snapper. Captain Dave kept us on the spot and we are all eating well tonight. Thanks Captain Dave.

Chris's group got in on some great mahi fishing today along with some beautiful weather. Seemed from what I heard on the radio pretty much everyone had plenty of opportunities to put good catches of mahi together today with nice size fish and we didn't have to go very far to find them. I found some of these fish at 14 miles although the majority were caught at 17 to 18 miles.

Matt, his friends and relatives came down to Islamorada to go fishing as part of the grooms bachelor party. We struggled early with the tunas because the current had all but stopped and there also was quite a few boats at the hump which doesn't help the bite. Once again on a short day I decided to deep drop and work my way back to the reef. Well, I found the silk snapper in 400 ft and they were biting, we caught over 20 before deciding that we had all we needed. It didn't end there though as we use some of our live bait and caught 4 kings, a shark and a decent mutton snapper to finish up the day.

The tuna are still biting at the Islamorada hump and Bill and his group did a great job of getting most of them to the boat before the sharks could catch them. We had to shorten our day and distance as one of our guest was not feeling at all well and we ended up with a 3/4 day, a little short of where we needed to be to catch the mahi.

Quite a surprise this evening while out on a shark and tarpon trip with Skyler and River to hook into this cabera snapper. First one i have ever caught at the bridge although I have heard of them being caught there on occasion. The action didn't stop there with spinners, barracudas  tarpon and  many other sharks keeping the twins and their dad and grandpa busy all evening

Lori and her group  had quite a variety of fish today. We started with the tunas, found some mahi ,ended up catching some yellowtail and a big yellow jack to finish it off.

More folks from the UK this evening and another youngster that get to brag about catching his first tarpon and it was on the KK. Oscar caught a 50 pound tarpon so he has bragging rights to that but his brother mac caught a 6 ft lemon shark and a bunch of other sharks during the evening also. Even Rose their younger sister got into the action, catching several sharks and learning how to cast a spinning rod. Great fun with great people once again!

Mathew got two half day trips on the KK with his grand parents and both were very similar. We caught the yellowtails and mangrove snappers first and them went to the hump where we got in on the good blackfin tuna bite that has been going on there over the last week or so.

Well the wind slowed down yesterday but so did the bite, as we caught a dozen tuna but only one mahi. We spent some time on the reef and caught mangroves, yellowtail and a few vermillons which kept Daniel and Kenny busy and makes for some great eating, although Kenny wasn't waiting to have his fish cooked and was eating the tuna almost before they got chilled in the fish box.
Not running every day as we have been now that the kids are back in school but we will keep fairly busy even so as we head into the fall season. Fishing is still good, with the mahi still here till those first cold fronts in November and a lot less pressure on the fish with fewer boaters around. Fall is a great time of the year to be in the keys.

Robert and Patrick may have gotten more then they bargained for today as the wind was east at 10 to 15 knots and there was no question as to when we got to the gulf stream current. We caught some tunas and then headed out a little deeper to find mahi and the first thing we found was a log with 20  really nice size mahi on it. A big one did get away from us but we managed to catch 10 at that spot and then a couple more later on. The boys finally decided they had had enough and we headed back to the reef where we caught some vemillions  and tried yellowtailing before calling it a day.