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Weekly Florida Keys Fishing Update from Capt. Dave Schugar and Sweet E'Nuf Charters
Posts Tagged ‘dolphin fishing’
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — This week we were inundated with lots of small dolphin offshore, with a few bigger ones. Break out your ruler because most of them are close. One day there were decent schoolies from 6-9 pounds, real quality fish, but they weren’t eating, and they wouldn’t stay with the boat. The full moon has shorted the bite, but if you leave early the fish should cooperate till 10:00AM. As we get closer to the new moon the bite should lengthen and being overcast can help too. Makes it harder to see the fish, but they seem a little less timid in low light conditions.
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.
Tags: amberjack fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, dead bait fishing, dolphin fishing, dry tortugas fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, gulf oil spill, happy fourth of july, jigging, live bait fishing, Marathon fishing, mutton snapper fishing, pilchards, sabiki rigs, skipjack tuna fishing, skippy fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, tuna fishing, wreck fishing
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Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — After getting back from the Bahamas, I was booked everyday for just about the rest of the month. We started off the week with some dolphin fishing, which wasn’t how I left it. All we could find were illegal dolphin. After running out as far as 40 miles only to find some smaller fish, we decided to do some deep dropping. Since there wasn’t much current we were dropping five pounds of lead to 1200 feet of water and holding nicely. We caught eight rose fish and four barrelfish in five drops. That was pretty good fishing. On the way in we encountered some more small dolphin and skipjack tuna.
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.
Tags: amberjack fishing, barrel fish fishing, caloosa cove fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, dolphin fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, goliath grouper fishing, Holiday Isle Fishing, mangrove snapper fishing, Marathon fishing, Marathon Hump fishing, mutton snapper fishing, Nassau grouper fishing, pinfish fishing, reef fishing, sabiki rigs, skipjack tuna fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, wreck fishing
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Friday, June 18th, 2010
 MARATHON, Florida Keys — I am just catching back up from my week and half in the Bahamas. We traveled all night, putting along to conserve fuel and at first light we were on the Bahamian Bank. We ran high speed over the bank and through the pocket to Chub Cay. We checked in and went out to fish. We trolled the pocket for a while with no strikes, what a bummer, I was hoping for a late afternoon bite. So we headed to a reef where we caught red hinds (Strawberry grouper) for that evenings dinner. We had an amazingly fresh grouper dinner with garlic and oil over our pasta and salad. I went over there on my clients boat, the Cara Mia, a 38 foot Blackfin Express.
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.
Tags: bahama fishing, berry island fishing, Blackfin Express, Capt. Dave Schugar, Cara Mia, cheeseburger in paradise, chub cay fishing, conch burger, dolphin fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, harbor island fishing, james point fishing, jimmy buffet, Ma Ruby's, Marathon fishing, red hind fishing, strawberry grouper fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, white marlin fishing, yellowfin tuna fishing
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Monday, May 10th, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — Dolphin, dolphin, and more dolphin. It still isn’t a full-blown dolphin bite, but there are days which you can be proud of. It seems to be good one day and slow the next. I fished every day this week, but only one day was devoted to dolphin, and it was a little slow on that day. There were some fish caught around 12-15 miles from the beach, with a few big fish in the 30-50 pound range. I even heard of someone getting a 70 pounder…now that is a fish of a lifetime. Most of what I had seen and heard, schoolies have been scattered just about anywhere. Any day now we will see lots of large fish pouring through somewhere, I hope it is tomorrow.
While you’re out offshore, you might as well drop a few times for some snowys and other bottom fish. The bite has been great, but I wouldn’t know personally…I have been stuck on the reef catching my share of the yellowtails and groupers. The spots I have been fishing range from 75-98 feet of water. Finding a good big yellowtail spot isn’t hard to do right now…it’s their time to do the wild thing so they are very aggressive and hungry. I have been fishing this one spot where three bull sharks have taken up residence and occasionally a hammerhead or a tiger shark will show up to get their fill of these yellow delights.
The grouper bite has been great ever since it opened back up on May 1st. Hitting the wrecks and fishing the reef has produced a bunch of nice black groupers from 15-30 pounds. I have landed many goliaths from 30-150 pounds this week. We hooked many fish that I didn’t even slow down. I use a simple leader rig with 80-pound main line with 100-pound leader. Even with the drag locked down, I still can’t stop some of the fish before they get into the structure. I am thinking about going up in test, there are some slobby groupers out there. I am still looking to beat my 63-pound black grouper I got a few years back…one of these days, I can feel it! To fish for these dinosaurs, I like to use large yellowtails, up to 2 pounds, and grunts bigger than your hand. Even small-but-legal grouper can eat either of these baits; they have a voracious appetite and a mouth to match.
The swordfish bite was red hot, from what I heard from the boys. Summer time isn’t the best time to get a lunker, but there are lots of them out there. Even though you still might get lucky and get a 500 pounder, most of the big fish are on their way back up to the North, where they’ll be harvested by long liners up off of New York and Boston. Strip baits still seem to be the best baits along with squid. When you use squid you can sometimes end up with an oilfish, escolar, or even a pompfret. You just never know what you’re going to get when you drop a bait down 2,000 feet.
Good luck, and make sure you got all of your paper work onboard. Law Enforcement has been out in full force, especially if you are diving…those dive flags seem to attract them. Make sure you are abiding by all the new laws, or it could cost you.
Tags: black grouper fishing, bottom fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, dolphin fishing, escolar fishing, fishing law enforcement, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, goliath grouper fishing, Marathon fishing, oilfish fishing, pompfret fishing, snowy grouper fishing, squid, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, swordfish fishing, yellowt
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Monday, May 3rd, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — Grouper season is officially open; get them while they are still congregating on the reef! I wasn’t booked on May first when the season opened, but my buddy Capt. Blaine Lemm and I went out to get our take. We didn’t leave the dock until 2:00 in the afternoon, but we had some great late afternoon action. Instead of weeding through the small ones we targeted large grouper with half pound to one-pound baits. We ended up hooking nine fish and only getting one 30 pounder to the boat. We got a few heads, before we were able to get a whole one to the boat. In the process we each caught a goliath grouper in excess of a hundred pounds.
If you’re heading offshore, the dolphin aren’t thick by any means…but if you put your time in you can make a pretty good day of it. Most of the fish have been from 12 miles out to the edge of the continental shelf. Almost all the fish have been under birds, with a few exceptions of some extraordinary floaters. My buddy John Foster found a boat with two motors floating, but half sunk with a school of wahoo on it. The only problem was that the wahoos weren’t the top predator in this little floating ecosystem. They were only able to get three whole 20 pounders and four halves. There must have been a shark or two lingering around. The tuna bite picked back up after its short break. Using live bait seems to be the key now…the tunas are not hitting the jigs as well as they have been, but you still are able to get a few. Using live bait, the tunas were averaging 20-25 pounds with your occasional smaller ones too.
The deep dropping has been phenomenal! From snowys to queen snappers, to tiles and barrelfish, the current has been perfect for this fishing. We need some current, but too much or you can’t hold bottom. Right now, its perfect with a knot and half drift slightly northeast. A few people that I have talked with tell me that that the deep dropping has been as good as it gets. With the new laws you need to be careful of what you catch because you can only have three groupers on the boat now. This would include tilefish in your aggregate limits. So that would mean two snowys and only tilefish, but we can live with a decrease bag limit. From what I heard coming down the coconut telegraph, they intend to shut it all down…so get what you can while it is still legal.
The reef is on fire! The yellow brick road has formed behind many boats, and many people are reporting the start of a great yellowtail season. We do catch yellowtails all year round, but it really is in the summer when the yellowtails school in great numbers. Since they’re competing for the food, they become very aggressive and easier to catch. We caught a few this week in the 5-pound range, which is an absolute monster when it comes to yellowtail. There have been a few muttons around, but now that grouper is in season, we have been concentrating on them instead. Remember, elephants eat peanuts…but to weed out small fish you must use larger baits.
Good luck and I will see you out there!
Tags: barrel fish fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, Captain Blaine Lemm, deep drop fishing, dolphin fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, goliath grouper fishing, grouper fishing, live bait fishing, Marathon fishing, offshore fishing, queen snapper fishing, snowy grouper fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, tilefish fishing, tuna fishing, wahoo fishing, yellowtail snapper fishing
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Sunday, April 11th, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — Spring is here, thank God. It seems that our cold days are in our past. The water temperature has been warming and soon we will be in full swing with lots of dolphin. The Gulf Stream has moved in and out this week, this has caused the shallower water to warm as well as the heat from the sun too. Keep you eyes and ears open because it isn’t going to be long before the dolphin come pouring through.
I have been all over the pace this week. I fished the deep, the shallow and all the places in between. In the beginning of the week we went out for tunas at the hump and did very well. Most of the tunas were perfect size, not too small to eat and not too big where the meat gets really red. I prefer the 10-20 pounders…they have pinkish meat and I believe it is the best tasting. We filled the cooler with all the tuna my clients could eat and then we took a short ride to the west to fish for queen snapper. We caught tilefish, and queen snappers — good size to them as well. The fish have been averaging 12 pounds, but we have been getting a few close to 20 pounds.
The next charter this past week was a guide trip. A guide trip is when I jump on my clients boat and I give hands on training of the rigs, bait, and the area. If anyone is interested in this please give me a call…I would love to help you out! My client Dave wanted to learn about the reef so we went yellow tailing. It took a while for the yellowtails to pop up, but once they did we caught a few before they got spooked off buy the numerous kings and mackerel…or maybe it was the current (or lack of). We tried every trick in the book and they still wouldn’t bite. So I move to another spot out in 88 feet of water.
We marked a nice school, but I hadn’t been in this spot for quite some time now, so who knew that we would get into some great mangrove action? Most of them were 3-4 pounds, but none smaller than 2 pounds. After the bite died off, we switched to a jig, and whipped-jigged kings and mackerel on 8-pound test line. What a blast that was! All throughout the day we were catching grouper on the bottom with a small 1’4 oz jig tipped with a small pinfish. We were targeting muttons, but only caught groupers and mangroves. We probably caught 20 groupers (gags, reds, and blacks) and half of them were keepers, which we released unharmed to get a little bigger. I can’t wait till the grouper season opens, it’s killing me to release such quality fish, but the law is the law.
My next charter was another guide trip and we did our tuna thing for while when we finally caught some small ones, which we bridled up on two Tiagra 50 wides with 80-pound test. My client wanted to troll live tuna around the hump, so we did. We didn’t get any strikes but the anticipation of what might eat our baits really got our blood flowing. One of these days we will get a big marlin or maybe a mako. While we trolled around trying to get the smaller tunas we picked up one dolphin, which was a bonus. After a few hours with no strikes we went deep dropping and we caught a 60-pound wreckfish, rosefish, and a barrelfish. Unfortunately we were unable to keep the wreckfish due to its “no take” status. They are commercially taken but recreational anglers are not allowed to posses this fish.
On Sunday we headed out o look for yellowfin tuna, but we couldn’t find any. It was a desert out there, no dolphin and no yellowfins. We did manage to catch a sailfish on a squid spreader bar. We looked all over for birds but to no avail. I was using an open array radar to search for the birds, but we only found a few and they were just flying.
Good luck and keep it safe.
Tags: barrel fish fishing, black grouper fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, dolphin fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, grouper fishing, guide fishing, Gulf Stream, king fish fishing, kingfish fishing, mackerel fishing, mangrove snapper fishing, Marathon fishing, queen snapper fishing, red grouper fishing, reef fishing, rosefish fishing, sailfish fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, tilefish fishing, tuna fishing, wreckfish fishing, yellowfin tuna fishing, yellowtail snapper fishing
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Sunday, April 4th, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — What an enjoyable week compared to the frigid winter we have had! I have been booked all week and there is a lot of fish to be had almost everywhere out there.
Thanks to the East wind, the sails were piling down the pipeline and boats with upper stations had a ball sight fishing for those acrobatic speedsters. Even though they were being finicky, there were many sailfish to be had. With the ballyhoo hard to find, the choice of bait here in Marathon has been pilchards, which really is a better bait for sight fishing. I like to hook the bait in the belly to force the pilchard down which usually entices the sailfish to strike.
There has been an incredible color edge off of Marathon all week with lots of sailfish action on it. The bite had been better the further West you went. Some boats fished all the way down to American shoals (what a hike!), but in order to put up big numbers of fish that’s where you needed to be. Along with the sails, cobia and dolphin are also being caught along that edge.
The deeper edge further offshore that had the dolphin last week dried right up as if it was never there. I would keep looking for dolphin just beyond the color change and out as far as 400 feet just in case there is another push of fish this week.
The wrecks have been hit hard for the past few weeks and the fishing pressure has made a definite impact on the bite, which was out of this world. The wrecks are still producing amberjacks, muttons, and beautiful grouper, which we have been releasing. I caught a small genuine red snapper, which is not common in these parts except for a few deeper wrecks during certain times of the year.
The bait of choice on the mutton snapper bite has been live pinfish and any small grunts, which I was able to catch. The tomtates, my favorite bait has been hard to come by, but pinfish seem to be doing the job just fine.
Kingfish have been on most of the deeper wrecks from 130-200 feet of water. I was mainly catching them with deep-trolled ballyhoo. I heard that the reef also had kingfish prowling behind the yellowtails. When fishing for yellow tails, the kings will be hanging back waiting for the right time to strike.
The hump has been red hot. The tunas have been biting better in the afternoon verses the morning, but that may be due to the full moon we have had and the tunas must be feasting on the squid all night long. Jigging for the tunas has resulted in more and bigger fish, but when it becomes overcast the larger tunas will hit the trolled baits too.
The live baiter out there have been harassed by all the boat traffic out there, so if you see a boat using live bait, give him some room and respect that he can’t catch his fish when boats come barreling up behind them. While we were out offshore we did a little deep dropping and yielded some quality queen snappers. Most of the queens were up in the 12-18 pound class, which is some quality fish. Snowys and tilefish are abundant right now too in the 800-700 foot range.
I had a charter which took me out in the bay. I normally don’t fish out here but when the weather gets rough and my clients can’t take the big seas we head out there for some action packed fishing. They wanted to catch some goliaths and the bay didn’t let us down. We caught a couple in the 30 pound class and two big ones one was about 100 pounds and the other had to 350 pounds if it wasn’t 400 pounds. Most of the mackerel have left the bay but we did manage to get a dozen or so.
The bluefish on the other hand have been ransacking our baits in packs of 20-50 fish strong. It is pretty cool to se 20 or so fish following the one you have hooked. When this happens I like to throw some cut chunks right behind the hooked fish to get them really fired up before I pitch a spoon or a jig with a ballyhoo on it to get multiple hookups. We had out a shark bait for most of the day but we only had a couple of small ones short strike the bait.
Have a great week and I will see you out there. For those of you who haven’t signed the petition please sign it, we need everyone in on this one. Lets take back our rights to fish here come sign this petition!
Tags: amberjack fishing, American shoals fishing, ballyhoo fishing, bay fishing, bluefish fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, cobia fishing, dolphin fishing, florida humps fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, genuine red snapper, goliath grouper fishing, grouper fishing, grunt fishing, king fish fishing, kingfish fishing, live bait fishing, Marathon fishing, mutton snapper fishing, pilchards, pinfish fishing, red snapper fishing, sail fish fishing, sailfish fishing, shark fishing, snowy grouper fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, tilefish fishing, tomtates, tuna fishing, wreck fishing, yellowtail snapper fishing
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Monday, March 29th, 2010
MARATHON, Florida — Tailing conditions have arrived and the sailfish are on the move. As many as 25 to 50 sailfish coming down sea in packs of 5 to 20 fish at a time, what a sight. If you’re looking to put some numbers up, this week was the week to do it. Unfortunately I was not sail fishing, my clients wanted food so I missed out on the great sail fishing. This has been the trend and having a tower sure makes it easy to find the fish, but the sails have been finicky, turning on baits but not eating from what I have been hearing. If you’re looking to try this for the first time, look for an edge from the reef line out to 200 feet and head to the west. Just keep heading west the hot spots have been from Big Pine Key to Sandy Key Light. Ballyhoo has been tough to get, but the pilchards are thick, so get in the skinny water and bait shouldn’t be a problem.
If sailfish isn’t your thing the dolphin have showed up in great numbers just not any size to them though. I have heard of a few gaffer size fish but for the most part the fish are running small from 28 inches to 15 inches. Lots of throwback dolphin being caught, and lots of fun to be had. We had caught over 50-60 fish with only 20 keepers one day and 15 keepers the next. The fish have been out on a current edge just inside of 500 feet of water. The water temperatures hare cool for them but it hasn’t seemed to influence their appetite. The fish are moving in small packs and the most fish we hooked at a time was 10 fish, but we never moved far before we hooked up more. It appears that the fish are loaded up on the edge, with most of them on the inside edge of the slower moving water. Their isn’t much of a color change but you will have no problem seeing the edge of the current, the rip sticks out like a sore thumb. I would recommend using the smallest ballyhoo as possible and any small feathers or chuggers. The fish are small so use smaller baits to help your hookup ratio.
The reef fishing is still kind of slow, but if you put your time in you can manage a good catch of snappers and there are plenty of groupers too. I had out one of the scientists that is currently doing the grouper research in the Gulf and he was telling me that they have been working hard to get the research done so they can make a decision on the grouper closer. He was telling me that the groupers have a 20% mortality when they are released. The way they figure this out is to catch a bunch of groupers and then put them back down in the water in a cage. Then they come back at different intervals to check how many groupers have died. The research still points to the decline of the gag groupers in the gulf but the red population is fine. Hopefully they will open the season on time, but I have serious doubts.
Way offshore the hump has been steady, with plenty of tunas and amberjacks. Live bait and jigging are the best methods for getting bigger fish and if you happen to get out there on an overcast day the bite has been even better. My favorite colors for the jigs are chartreuse and pink; I don’t own any other colors. Well that’s, a lie, I have some purple ones but I haven’t used them in quite some time now. The 5-7 oz. Stick jigs work the best. You don’t have to buy shimano but if you want to spend more money for the same results then go for it. I generally start my drift just before the rise on the hump, which is like 700 feet of water, and this usually gives me an idea where they are holding up that day. Sometimes I will head out to 800 feet of water, which is pretty far away from the hump and drop down really deep to get the bigger ones. If you try this on top of the hump your chances of hooking an amberjack on light tackle is sure to happen.
Deep dropping has been good for the brave fisherman who have been heading out to the 650’s and beyond. I did really well early this week and got a few snowys, tiles, rosefish, and barrels too. The queen snapper season is over for the most part, but there are a few stragglers left behind.
Good luck this week and keep safe.
Tags: amberjack fishing, ballyhoo fishing, barrel fish fishing, big pine key fishing, deep drop fishing, dolphin fishing, florida humps fishing, grouper fishing, live bait fishing, pilchards, queen snapper fishing, reef fishing, rosefish fishing, sail fish fishing, sailfish fishing, sandy key light fishing, snowy grouper fishing, tilefish fishing, tuna fishing
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Sunday, March 21st, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys — It sure has been a while since I had a day off, but you wont hear me complain. Many people who usually come down to the Keys may not make it this year, but since there has been trouble in Mexico, the people who got a few bucks for a good time came down here. Some of my clients this week told me that they were going to go to Cancun but changed their plans due to the problems and threats that heard on the news. Last year it was a swine flu epidemic that caused people to stay in the country.
This week I spent a lot of time offshore, which was very productive as long as you fished the humps and deep dropped on ledges. The humps from Islamorada to Marathon have been packed with boats. The tuna and amberjack bite has been red hot. There have been much bigger amberjacks on the Islamorada Hump but still plenty of them on the Marathon hump to put any tackle you have to the test. The tunas have been smoking hot and their size has been good with many fish from 10 pounds and up. I only caught small ones when we pulled feathers. I only did that to get small ones for bait, the amberjacks love small tunas. You can fish them live or dead, but if you fish them live make sure you use enough lead to take them down three hundred feet to where the amberjacks are holding. It is better to have more lead than less, the tunas are hard swimmers and three pounds may seem like a lot but it will get the tuna down to the amberjacks. Using larger baits will ensure that you can get some of the largest fish out of this gigantic biomass of amberjacks that inhabit the hump.
The dolphin have been almost nonexistent, but there have been a few caught inside of 200 feet and some caught around floating debris out in the 600’s. With the water temperature in the low 70’s the dolphin will not be found in any numbers. I don’t know if it is just me but I can’t wait for the temps to rise, I am looking for the first push of dolphin. It probably won’t happen until the end of April but we can only hope.
The shallow wrecks have been over run with large amberjacks, and the word got out, the well-known wrecks looked like a parking lot. Everyone has been jockeying for the best position on the wrecks. Being in the right area of the wreck makes a whole lot of difference between catching and watching the boat next to you catching.
Reef fishing hasn’t changed much, it is still kind of slow for the most part, but the patches to the west of the seven mile bridge are producing a bounty of groupers and snappers. Most of the snappers are small muttons, and yellowtails with a few big mangrove snappers thrown in the mix.
The bay is full of mackerel, snappers, and groupers. Fishing the large deepwater grass beds near banks have produced for me very well. It doesn’t matter where you are, the mackerel will find you with a good chum slick. The best areas are about 7-10 miles strait out in front of the Seven Mile Bridge. Spoons and jig-n-shrimp combo works well too.
Get out there and fish and if you enjoy fishing please sign the petition to ensure that our favorite past time is still here to pass on to our kids. The web site for the petition is here.
Tags: amberjack fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, dolphin fishing, florida humps fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, grouper fishing, Islamorada fishing, mackerel fishing, mangrove snapper fishing, Marathon fishing, mutton snapper fishing, reef fishing, snapper fishing, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, tuna fishing, wreck fishing, yellowtail snapper fishing
Posted in Fishing News, Offshore Fishing Report | No Comments »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
MARATHON, Florida Keys – It is starting to look like spring, as this week’s tides have been extremely low. The temperature has been a little cooler than normal, which hasn’t been good for our tourist population. This week’s full moon made the fishing a little interesting.
The yellowtails on the reef are still sluggish, but the mangroves that have been on the patches have been day savers. Speaking of day savers the kingfish which are most often overlooked can give your light tackle a good run for it’s money. Drag screaming off of a reel gets every fisherman’s blood flowing. These toothy critters love this weather and as the water cleared up the bite was really on. Kingfish rely on their great eyesight to eat. They have very large eyes for their size. Kingfish have a torpedo shaped body, which allows them to have incredible acceleration to surprise its prey. One of the many reasons I love to fish for kings is their ability to launch themselves out of the water and land directly on your bait. Sometimes kingfish can jump twenty feet in the air when they attack bait on the surface. These supersonic jet –like predators can eat very large baits, as they will cut larger baits down to size as they shred apiece off on every pass. You can target these fish on deeper wrecks from 125-180 feet of water. If there are barracudas around the wreck the kings will stay further off the wreck so not to be eaten themselves. You can troll for them with live or dead bait along the edge of the reef or anchor up and chunk for them as well. When you’re anchored up try the kite with a large bait and some flatlines with live baits for the best results. They will readily eat a spoon or jig retrieved very fast. These fish are triggered to attack by fast moving action.
Sail fishing has been a little on the boring side. The current still hasn’t been all that great and this eddy of no current was shortly interrupted for a few days as we did experience some current this week. The bite for sails has been slow all the way up to Miami. When we get some current we will see the action pick back up. There were a few dolphin caught along the reef this week, nothing of any size or numbers but a few is better than none. I heard from one of my friends that a large school of schoolies cam by their boat, but they were too small to keep. If I had to go offshore this upcoming week I would venture out to the humps where the action has been with tuna and amberjacks. The super large jacks have held up residence on the hump and so has many large sharks too. The jacks out there have been averaging 65-80 pounds with some 100 pounders being caught too.
For the up coming week, it looks like we are going to experience cooler waters only in front of Marathon and as far out as 30 miles, but later in the week it will be pushed out by the warm water eddy and the warm water looks like it will push almost to the reef. When we loose the cooler water the Upper Keys will get it for a few days until it pushes around the corner to Miami. Look for warm water East or West till Thursday and then we should have some current and warm water for a few days until a new eddy of cold water will plague us once again. All of this cooler water is being pushed by the warm water out of the Gulf of Mexico and creating a Ying and a Yang mixture of cold and warm water along the Keys. This warm water is swirling the cold water up the coast and this is why we will be experiencing these changes of water temperatures.
I am counting the days till the dolphin run, but I am predicting that it won’t be until the end of April or the beginning of May before we see any major runs, but I hope I am wrong. This was the trend last year, and the only way that we will see the dolphin return early is if we experience some global warming, hahahaha, just kidding, but seriously, we need the warm water for the dolphin to show up early. And everyone hated El Nino, but I think that’s why we had loads of dolphin from March to October. I had amazing Octobers in the past when the water stayed warm late in the season. Keep your eyes peeled for birds working anywhere near the warm water for dolphin. Good luck out there.
Tags: amberjack fishing, Capt. Dave Schugar, dolphin fishing, florida humps fishing, Florida Keys Fishing, florida keys fishing charter, king fish fishing, kingfish fishing, Marathon fishing, sail fish fishing, sailfish fishing, sharks, Sweet E'Nuf Charters, tuna fishing, yellowtail snapper fishing
Posted in Offshore Fishing Report | 1 Comment »
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