Everyone needs some vacation time and it doesn’t get any more relaxing than here in the Keys.  Most of us that live here take our vacations at this time…in fact, you’ll see some local businesses close down for a month or so while those owners take their vacation!

People ask me all the time, “where do you go on vacation, Capt. Dave?”  It is really kind of funny, I tell them…it’s not far, and my couch has always treated me right.  But, serious now, I visit my some of my clients in Colorado, Michigan, Boston, etc.   My business is quite unique, I get to take people fishing which tends to be the highlight of their vacation.  Fishing with people creates a bond which I can’t describe, but it can be strong.  I get to meet all walks of life and to see the diversity of my clients really make me proud to be an American.

The lack of charters hasn’t kept me from fishing.  My friends have been coming down and catching yellowtail snapper, cubera snappers, mutton, and true reds.  I have been able to put my friends on some tuna, and grouper, too.  This time of the year the water starts to cool off and some fish move out as others move in.  The snapper bite on the reef has been great.  We are getting close to a fall run of dolphin, which I can’t wait for.  They are usually decent fish…not too many schoolies, mostly fish from 10-20 pounds.

I have been fishing on the deep reefs from 75-90 feet of water, and I’ve been catching big mangroves from 4-5 pounds if the sharks don’t eat them.  The yellowtails have been ranging from 1-3 pounds.  I have been fishing some new areas and getting yellowtail everywhere.  I have been using a leader rig for the mangroves and flat lining for the yellowtails.  Since the current has let up I have been using no weight for the yellowtail.

Every day is different: sometimes the fish will be close and sometimes far, but they are always there.  I have had to use large amounts of chum, but the payout is worth it.  Since the skippies have been thick, I have been using them a lot on the bottom and flat lining.  Tuna is exceptional bait, and I always keep plenty in the freezer.

There have been some talks about some sailfish being caught, but I haven’t fished for them because my clients and friends would rather catch something they can eat.  I believe that right now the reef has been the best area to fish as well as the hump for the tunas.  As the weather changes up north, the swordfish will be pouring through, too.  Talk about a lot of good eating meat!  Swordfish happens to be one of my favorites.

Plan B was to use the electric reel and drop on some spots for some snowys — and if we got lucky, a queen snapper. I have been getting a queeny every once in a while.

On the first drop we manged to get hooked up with something big. We were fishing in 800 feet of water and this fish didn’t want to budge a foot. It actually started to take line, so we figured it was a shark and cranked up the drag. Still this fish wouldn’t budge on our Tanacom 1000. After taking in a little line we finally got it off the bottom. We got it up almost 30 feet when he decided he wanted to go back to the bottom again.

After ten minutes of battling, we hadn’t gained any line. After about 20 minutes, we finally started to get this fish off the bottom. We worked hard and finally we we saw what was on our line. It was a monstrous snowy, with battle scars where it had been injured and healed. This was his last battle and we won. I would estimate this fish is around 50-60 pounds, which would have been a new world record…but we caught it on an electric and we all know that wouldn’t count.

On our next drop we caught a small 8-10 pound queen. One of my favorites, because not everyone knows how to catch them. Certain times of the year are better than others, but humps in deep water will hold large quantities of them from Sept-Jan. You just never know when they will show up. It was starting to get late and we wanted to catch a few tunas before heading home.

At the hump, we trolled all over the place and it seems that the tuna were having lock jaw, even in the late hours that we were fishing. The bite all week has been phenomenal, but they have to take a break sometimes and today seems to be the day. We did get a few, but not as many as we had hoped and the size was a little small compared to what we caught all week.

The jigging slowed down all week and still it was slow. We trolled to get the few we caught. We actually chased birds as far as two miles away from the hump to get the tunas we caught. We also caught one on the back side of the rip. While trolling around the hump we caught two gaffers, well one gaffer and a heavy lifter…and that seems to be all we did.

The reef at night has been great, many big mangroves, muttons, and some jumbo yellowtail.  As well in the daytime, yellowtails have been chewing, but fishing them in the fast current was a little challenging.  The patches yielded small yellowtail, but big enough to keep and make a meal.  Fishing the wrecks has produced a few good fish, but since the spawns are over for the most part, mutton fishing here in Marathon has slowed down.  Don’t get me wrong; there are a few nice fish to be had on any given day.

Offshore is where I finished these past couple of days, and the Tuna bite has been decent late in the afternoon.  It was good during most of the day on Thursday, but with people operating their boat like morons, I had to slow down, and in some cases I had to just pick my baits up and move from the area.  I actually had a guy troll over top of me on the hump.  His bait came flying over the gunwale, smacking my center consol before making a hasty exit.  Thank god my clients were back at the stern reeling in fish. I mean, we were stopped fighting fish and somehow this guy came that close to literally troll through my boat.

On Wednesday, I fished a half-day snapper in the morning and then left for a full day from 1:00pm to 9:00 pm.  The afternoon full day can only happen in the summer, we had just enough light to fish the whole time and then came home in the dark.    We caught some nice dolphin and tuna…well, we saw two dolphin and caught them, and then fished the hump where large fish were actually eating trolled baits.  Trolled ballyhoo or cedar plugs did the trick that day.

After all the fishing, it is always nice to sit down and eat a nice meal.   After a day of fishing, some sushi and oysters sounds good to me.  I ordered some Oysters Moscow from Castaways, which is a raw oyster with two types of caviar and horseradish sauce on it.  Very good, it gives it another step up from just a great oyster.  The flavor just pops in your mouth.

I also ordered two of their special sushi rolls, a 2-year roll, and a surf and turf roll.  The 2-year roll has chopped tuna on top, with an inside-out roll of shrimp tempura and asparagus, cream cheese, and something else I can’t remember.  The surf and turf roll has prime rib on top with lobster tempura and some other ingredients too.

Let me tell you one thing though, the custom champagne hand rolls are off the hook.  My favorite is the salmon, tuna, white tuna, with Japanese mayo, massago, and a quails egg yolk.  Yummmmmm that’s some good eating.

Hungry yet?

I started to fish with a half oz. of lead on my knocker rig and as the night progressed we ended up using a 1/8 oz. sinker.  I didn’t switch because of the slowing current, as a matter of fact the current picked up.  It is almost free lining, keeping the bait down but not on the bottom.  Every once in a while I will hold the line and the bait will rise up and then I feed it back, waiting for the bite.

Last year I cast-netted 180 quarts of sardines, which I am still using.  I saved the baits all year so that I would have them for the summer months of nighttime mangrove fishing.  Sardines are perfect bait for the snappers because of their size and the amount of oil in them.  They don’t stay on the hook real good but they are definitely preferred bait by the mangroves.

Each night we were able to capture a few other species other than mangroves.  Almost every night we have caught a legal red grouper and one night we caught a small cubera about 10 pounds and the other night we caught a few mutton snappers around 8 pounds.

The current has been good, in the west-bound direction.  It doesn’t take long for the bait to show up so don’t forget the cast net.  I will switch back and forth from the sardine to pilchard and I mainly chop up the pilchards into chunks and chum with them, but if you don’t have sardines they will work fine.

Good luck and keep only what you can use — conservation starts with us.

As the sun broke the horizon we all started to get a little giddy with anticipation. We stopped on four sets of birds until we finally found some dolphin that wanted to eat. They weren’t big but decent heavy lifters and schoolies.

After they shut down we were picking up our last fish when a slammer swam right behind the transom.  The crew sat there staring in shock and amazement as I pitched a live pilchard out to hook it up for my client Tom. Then Zack (who runs a boat at the boat house) pitched a bait out there and all of a sudden we got two big ones on. As we were fighting the fish, they ran together and then I saw a third fish where we pitched another rod out so now we had a triple-header! The fish weren’t huge but big enough to call large gaffers and one slammer. We boated all three fish and off we went further south on the hunt for the yellowfin. All this happened in 3200 feet about 42 miles out.

Yellowfins are a year-round fish in the Caribbean, but some months the larger migratory fish will push through. We caught eight 30-pound Yellowfins in Harbor Island last month and we figured if we got out far enough we might catch a few. We ended up not seeing any yellowfins, but the small blackfins were everywhere. Staying far enough away from land so not to enter Bahamian waters, we ran the radar picking up flock of birds, but each time it was 3-6 pound blackfins.

We did a little bottom dropping in some deep water and landed a few black snappers and yellow eyes, but there was very little current so I went to my Misty spot and on the first drop we landed a 30 pounder. Since you are only allowed one per boat we headed north checking the radar and finding small blackfins and skippy’s all the way back home. We did find some more dolphin but we had all the dolphin that we needed…so unless they were big we weren’t going to mess with them. I was thinking if we stayed in that area where we caught the dolphin this morning we might have landed a whole bunch of big ones. It was very alive from 40-50 miles out, lots of birds and fish.

Since it was close to a three hour run back to dock we put the blinders on and turned off the radar so not be sidetracked and headed home for an amazing dinner.

While fishing for grouper on my yellowtail spots we also got a few nassau groupers, which are protected and we released them unharmed to fight another day.  When you got your yellowtail spot all chummed up it is always good to drop down some small baits like half of a ballyhoo or small pinfish for some great mangrove action.

Speaking of mangroves, the bite has been great at night.  Don’t rush out there, because the bite hasn’t started ’til late.  If you leave around 9:00PM you will be able to fish for a few hours to get your limit.  Fishing out in Federal waters you are allowed to keep ten mangroves, but if you fish close to shore in state waters you may only keep five mangroves.  Make sure you know where you are fishing so as to not accidentally go over your legal limit.

The bait has been abundant so you really don’t need to bring a lot out with you.  Pilchards and gogs are swarming, and all you need to catch them is a few sabiki rigs or a cast net if you know how to throw one.  I prefer to drift back large baits for the bigger mangroves.  The small ones can peck at it until the big one comes and steals it from them.  My rig is usually 40-pound leader with a small slip sinker like 1/16^th –1/8^th oz.  I slowly drift back the bait until I get a taker and I feed the bait for about 6-10 feet before a set the hook.  You don’t get every one, but if it is a big fish he will have that bait down his throat and you should hook almost all of them.  You don’t need lots chum, just enough to keep the bait around the boat, which keeps the snappers there.

Towards the end of this week we fished for muttons and amberjacks.  Since this is the last moon of the spawn we took advantage of it.  We didn’t set the world on fire but we managed 3-6 muttons each day with lots of other action such as amberjacks, jack crevales, and kingfish.  There has been an abundant amount of kingfish this week, which is a little unusual.  We have kings all year round, but during the summer months they are few and far in between.  We even got one that pushed 40 pounds but most of them are 10-15 pounds.  They aren’t the best eating, but if you smoke them they are out of this world.

The dolphin picked up this past week, with fish from 6-30 pounds.  I haven’t been out there, but my friends have shot out there a couple of times this week and have come back with some impressive catches.  On Thursday, Big Time Bait and Tackle put on a tournament with Maui Jims Sunglass Co.  I was one of the lucky individuals who took out one representative and writers from all of the major fishing magazines for a day of fishing.  It was supposed to be a dolphin tournament, but since it was blowing 20-25 knots, we all weren’t going offshore…so they changed the rules to heaviest weighable fish.

I ended up winning with a 39-pound amberjack.  It was just a friendly tournament, but the writer who caught the biggest fish won a trip to Hawaii.  This whole trip was set up to let these writers experience the Maui Jim’s sunglasses.  I got to try on a bunch of them and I am hooked.  I really saw the difference between my Costa’s and the Maui Jims; I am a Maui Jim guy now.  We also caught three large muttons around 18 pounds a piece.

Just to let everyone know, there is no oil down here and hotels are starting to drop their prices so come on down and enjoy the Keys like the rest of us are!

The bait was violently hit which then turned into a battle for my client Tom.  He fought this fish for nearly 45 minutes and then we caught a glimpse of what it was.  We thought it was a shark, but we were close, it was 15-foot sawfish, one of the rarest fish in the ocean.  This impressive fish is practically a dinosaur.  The saw like bill has one-inch teeth sticking out of it was almost six feet long.  The massive body measured four and half feet wide and it was as long as the transom of the boat with is 15 feet.  Very cool sighting, most people will never see one in the wild, and this is the second one we have caught in two years.

After sweating out gallon of water we decided to move and try some deep water for muttons and scamp grouper but we never hooked up.  We got a few bites but never connected to any of them.  There is a ledge out in 250 feet of water out there, and we marked fish all over it, but with no current the fish were not being cooperative.  After about two hours of no bites be decided to anchor back up on a yellowtail spot and stay there the night.  It was getting late and we caught a few more yellowtails and one large red grouper.  As the sun started to go down we started to cook dinner, which consisted of grouper on the grill, grilled asparagus, garlic pasta and some rum. You’ve got to have the rum.

The following day after breakfast we headed to the shallow banks on the inside edge of the Gulf and fished for red grouper.  It was like clockwork, dropping down dead gogs, and live grunts we were limited out in a couple of hours.  At this time we decided to head back to Key west for a fun filled Fourth of July.  Watching the fireworks from the boat while we ate bubba burgers, yellowtail ceviche and garlic pasta with a mozzarella, tomato salad.  After the fire works the boat next to us had a cannon, which they fired off and it was deafening.

After the Fourth, we headed to Cay Sal Banks, not getting too close because that would be illegal.  You have to check in before you can enter Bahamian waters.  There are areas where you can troll and deep drop where you are not actually in Bahamian waters.  You have to stay 12 miles outside any land.  Unfortunatly, there aren’t any places to check in over here, you would have to go 150 miles to check in, but the Cay Sal Bank is only 50-75 miles away in the opposite direction.  While we were over there we caught about fifty barracudas on the troll so we tried deep dropping in 1200 feet of water and caught 10 black snappers and one forty pound misty grouper.  After that we headed home which is over three hours from there.

With one day off, I had a guide trip with a great bunch of people — Mike, Jack, Max, Wyatt, and Spencer.  We had a goal to yellowtail fish, but with no current it was hard fishing.  After about three hours and two spots we decided to go mutton fishing.  It was a good thing that we did, because we caught five muttons and lost at least five others.  They guys had a great day and some excellent fish for dinner that night.  We fished a wreck in 180 feet of water and it was on — we got bites every drop with many double hookups.  The bite was on and if you are looking to catch some of these big mutton snappers this is the time to get down here.

Come on down! The weather is hot as the bite.  And to all of you who are worried about the oil, don’t be! There is no oil and there isn’t any likelihood of oil in out near future.  Listening to the news I found out that they might be able to cap it this weekend, keep your fingers crossed.  If the oil does make it to the Gulf Stream it will most likely pass by the Keys out as far as twenty miles, so if it does come this way the reef shouldn’t be harmed.  Of course we never know what the weather will do so we still got to keep our fingers crossed that they will be able to contain this spill before a hurricane around the corner scatters it all around.  Stay informed about what’s going on down here and keep my web site on your favorites.

Hope to see you down here! Come on down while the fishing is good!

Most of the fish have been congregating on the edge of the Gulf Stream and a few miles beyond.  Most of the fish are under birds, but when looking for fish, try and find as few birds together as possible. This will indicate dolphin instead of skippies.  My magic number is two to three birds for big fish, but five birds can be either schoolies or a bunch of big dolphin.  You just never know what going to be under a huge flock of birds either, but in most cases they are skippies.  If the skippies are small, you might find wahoo or marlin close by.  When I fished in Costa Rica, I learned to troll around the birds and not through them to raise billfish.  The billfish are looking for the few bait fish that get separated from the school, it seems that they can take them out easier one at a time than trying to slash into a ball of moving fish.  I learned that one on the discovery channel.

The tuna have been biting pretty good on the live bait. Jigs seem to catch a few 10 pounders, but if you’re looking for the big ones, you will need plenty of live pilchards.  Getting the pilchards hasn’t been hard if you venture out on the reef after dark.  Anchoring anywhere from 18-40 feet of water after dark you can enjoy the great mangrove bite and load up on pilchards for the following day to the hump.  If you anchor in 40 feet of water, the pilchards will be a little less dense, but the gogs are much thicker in this deeper water.  By using the bigger sabiki rigs you can keep more gogs on the line without as many coming off.  The sword fishing report was good, and my Buddy Capt. Brian caught a 350-pound mako with his clients.

You have to get out to the wrecks and catch some muttons! They are still biting ok. Many days I get six or so with all the amberjack action you could want.  The muttons have been averaging about 12 pounds, with some into the 25-pound class.  Live bait is where it’s been at. Pinfish, cigars, grunts, and crabs have all been producing well.  Dead bait which can work well when the fish are stacked up, it really hasn’t been working for lately, but I always keep throwing some dead baits down because sometimes they will get lazy and catching a live bait just seems like too much effort sometimes.  Split tailed baits or plugs will work, even strips of bonita are some of my favorite dead bottom baits.

I am headed to the Tortugas for a few days, and I will post again after I get back so check sometime after Tuesday.  Have a great “Fourth” and don’t forget that it is our military that we really need to thank so that we can go fishing.  Remember that here in Marathon you don’t have to drive home, call a cab and for a few bucks extra they will drive your car home for you.

The next day we went wreck fishing.  We caught five amberjacks and three muttons.  The muttons seem to biting from 140-180 feet of water.  They weren’t biting great but we did miss quite a few other fish, which could have been other muttons as well.  We tried heading offshore again for a few days only to catch a few schoolies, which were legal to harvest.  The bite at the hump was slow, too; lack of current seemed to have hindered all the fishing.

I went yellow tailing only to have the lack of current hinder that as well.  So we went mutton fishing and caught a few muttons from 15-20 pounds.  We also got our fair share of amberjacks too.  While we were yellow tailing I dropped some pinfish to the bottom.  The bottom bite was active.  We caught two goliaths from 30-70 pounds, a Nassau grouper weighing in at 25 pounds and plenty of five-pound mangrove snappers.

Towards the end of the week I heard of a few big fish being caught or seen, but not much.  The large schoolies have been numerous east of the Marathon Hump from 1100-1300 feet of water.  Basically all you wanted if you wanted to travel that far to the east.  Most of the fish have been reported from Holiday Isle to Caloosa Cove.

The mangrove spawn is just starting, so get out of the heat and fish at night from 25-70 feet of water.  Lots of bait out on the reef too, so you might want to bring your cast net or sabiki rigs.

The following day we went out of Chub Cay and ran to east end of the Berry Islands and trolled for a few hours.  Not much there either so we decided to make the final run to Harbor Island.  On the way there we encountered some birds, but not much.  We trolled around and through the birds and caught a small yellowfin tuna.  Since it was getting late we needed to check in to our slip before the dock master went home for the evening.  That evening we jumped on the golf cart and drove around till we came across Ma Ruby’s, an incredible little joint with excellent food.  I had a conch burger that was out of this world; everyone else ordered their cheeseburger in paradise, which was recommended by Jimmy Buffet.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the rum seems to flow from the faucets here.  It seems that happy hour starts when you hit the dock and it doesn’t end till bedtime.

The following day we had a slow start due to the empty beer cans all over the deck and few empty rum bottles on the live well.  After getting some fresh coffee in our systems we geared up for the unexpected.  I have never been to Harbor Island before but after spending a little over a week there I highly recommend it.  Heading south to get out of the cut we encountered some big swells in the cut.  Some of which were fifteen feet or better.  Once out of the cut, it was a short ride, which seem like forever to James Point.  This point sticks out five miles from the edge of the beach and sticks out into the current.  3,000-4,000 feet on one side, 50 feet of water on top and 3,000-4,000 feet on the other side.  Harbor Island has five points like all within range of a day trip.

The first couple of days the seas were angry, ten to twelve footers with a fifteen-foot ground swell.  It was still very fishable though.  Being that it is at the edge of the North Atlantic, the ground swells were neat to fish in.  Once the wind subsided the seas were flat with 15-20 foot ground swells, and again that was really neat to see, kind of reminds me of the rolling hills of Kentucky.   The first couple of days we caught some big dolphin averaging from 25-40 pounds.  We actually had a blue come up and seize up one of the dolphin we were reeling in.  It was a little big for the blue to eat and he refused to eat any of our pitch baits we put back for him.

We went out a couple of other days and got some barracudas and one white marlin weighing in at 90 pounds.  That was impressive to watch unfold from the tower.  The water temp kept rising and it seemed to drive away the marlins.  Even the dolphin were absent, but we did catch eight yellowfin tunas one afternoon live baiting off of one of those points.  We kept trolling for marlin but had no luck, that how it goes sometimes, even in the Bahamas.   On one of our last days fishing we sucked in an injector, which destroyed our turbo.  We had to limp home, which took 41 hours of driving.  We did stop and make two legs out of it.  Be held up over night at the Berry islands and then the following morning we trolled all along the Berry’s catching some more yellowfin tuna and blackfins.  Once we got home, I started back fishing on Sweet E’Nuf. Boy what a change.