Posts Tagged ‘snowy grouper fishing’

Offshore Fishing Report: Mackerel Biting During the Holidays

Monday, December 21st, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Happy holidays everyone. It is usually pretty quiet down here the week before Christmas and it seems that this year is following normal trends. With a fresh blanket of snow in the northeast we seem to be pretty cozy down here in paradise.

The sailfish action has been steady with 2-4 fish as a daily average. Most of the fish were found tucking up along the edge of the reef. Putting the time in with slow trolling live baits has produced some nice action with kings and dolphin while waiting to be attacked by wolf packs of sails. During the midday the bite has slowed down and I would recommend dropping down on wrecks and the edge of the reef for some mutton and grouper action until later in the day when the sails pick back up again. There have been some sprays from bait showers inside the reef from 20-40 feet of water and using your tower you will see if they are from mackerels or sails. There has been a great push of mackerels in the shallows.

The mackerel fishing has picked up considerably since last week. Hoards of Spanish and cero mackerel have been feasting on the abundant bait from inside of Hawks Channel out to the patches. Trolling spoons or medium size crank baits works really well to help locate a big school. Once you have located a big school you anchor up and chum. While you’re chumming you can use shrimp, which seems to be the best bait for them, small pilchards, chunks and strips to have fun with these guys on light tackle. You can even use your fly rod, which is pretty cool as the mackerel scream line off of your flimsy noodle of a rod. The current allotment is 15 per person, but you can’t freeze this fish, so only keep as many as your going to eat fresh or put in the smoker, because they do make some of the best smoked fish when done right. My buddy Chris Kilmas has probably the best smoke fish I have ever tried. I have been smoking fish for a long time and he blows past me with his smoked fish. He will be smoking some mackerel I gave him this past weekend, I can’t wait till it gets done.

This time of the year we get heavy north winds which tends to keep people from fishing. This isn’t always necessary if you knew about the great fishing we have in Hawks Channel and on the patches. You might have to move around a bit until you find a good spot when you do, man-o-man it can be some exciting fishing, never knowing what will swim by the boat next. Big sharks, cobia, grouper, kingfish, mackerel, all kinds of snappers, and some pretty big, use hawks channel as a super highway. Finding rock piles scattered through the channel the fish use these as feeding stations, kinda like our rest stops on the turnpike. You never want to fish on top of the rock pile but instead anchor along side of it. If you don’t produce anything after a half-hour move to another rock pile until you find one with fish on it. Sometimes the fish will come to you if you chum long enough.

We need everyone to get involved and band together, because we need to get lobbyists to fight for our cause. There is a two-part amendment, which is going to be devastating to our economy if passed. ‘If approved, the closure will affect federal waters in the South Atlantic region from approximately 240 feet deep seaward and prohibit fishing for or possession of speckled hind, and warsaw grouper, as well as snowy grouper, blueline tilefish, yellowedge grouper, misty grouper, queen snapper, and silk snapper. The deepwater closure excludes golden tilefish, a species generally found over mud bottom and not likely to co-occur over the hard bottom habitat preferred by speckled hind and warsaw grouper. The closure is based on the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee’s recommendation that an Allowable Biological Catch of zero (0) landings be implemented for both speckled hind and warsaw grouper. Currently, fishermen are allowed to keep 1 fish per vessel per trip and sale is prohibited for these two species. The amendment will prohibit all fishing for, possession, and retaining speckled hind and warsaw grouper.’ They are doing this to protect the deep-water reefs not because of over fishing. This is an outrage because they have no idea that there is even a problem, it is just another elaborate scheme that the tree huggers and their lobbyists are trying to do to keep us from making a living from a great renewable resource. Please help us by joining together so we too can get a lobbyist to fight for us. Email me at sweetenufcharter@aol.com and join the fight.

Offshore Fishing Report: Rain Doesn’t Slow Down Sailfish

Monday, December 7th, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Rain, rain, go away, come back some other day. Our lawns have been taken care of this week with all the rain we have been having. It has made it very soggy out on the water. Even with all the rain it hasn’t seemed to effected the fishing though.

Sailfish have been pouring down the reef with some pretty good dolphin action too. This really has been the first time I have seen any dolphin in quite some time now. We got a pair of slammers earlier in the week. We found the dolphin right on the color change where there happened to be a really nice rip. You could hear the difference as the Gulf Stream was rushing by. The change was anything but subtle. The color change plus the weed line and the rip all were telling me there were fish there. The inside edge was the cleaner of the two and that’s where we found the dolphin in 150 feet of water. There were some schoolies mixed in as well. There has been plenty of sailfish action most of the days. Only a couple of days this week were the sails hard to come by. Slow trolling was pretty productive for me, but flying the kite might have been tough with all the rain, but I am sure someone was, somewhere. The depths where most of the fish were located at were from 130 feet to 165 feet. The boats with towers did well in with the sails, sight fishing in 20 to 40 feet of water. The cobias are picking up on the ocean side as well. If you have a tower, I would start looking for the rays around noon while sun is high. The overcast conditions, makes it a little more challenging to spot those rays.

The yellow tailing is really good right now with most of the fish from 1-2 pounds. I haven’t hit some of my deeper spots, which have bigger fish because the bite has been so good from the 65-40 foot area. You will find, as the water gets colder, the concentrations of fish in the shallower water will be the ticket. I didn’t hit the patches this week but I was told by many different captains that the bite had turned off. I am sure they are biting somewhere; you just might have to look around a bit. We have been hitting the patches hard so maybe we caught them all, ha-ha, not a chance. Most likely they have turned off because they were feeding at night on the full moon. When we get a full moon the light, which is generated out there is just dumbfounding. It really lights it up and many times you don’t even have to turn on the overhead florescent. Using shrimp on the patches can greatly increase you hogfish catch. I like drifting in the shallows where there isn’t as much rock but mixed with grass patches. I generally use a small jig witch you can drag on the bottom. I like to drag it a bit then I let it stay on the bottom by letting out a little line as we drift slowly. Now this technique can only be done when the wind isn’t honking.

When the wind was down, many boats went out for swords, catching lots. A few 200+ pounders and a bunch of 100-150 pounders were caught this week during the small window we had. I am itching to get a swordfish charter; I just can’t wait to get out there. Well, when I venture out that far it is deep drop time too. I got the itch for some snowys and tiles. It seems like forever since I dropped for them. I really miss my plate full of some deepwater fried fish.

I hope they don’t shut our entire deep dropping down. They are talking about shutting all bottom fishing down from 270 feet of water and out. Say goodbye to all of the deep dropping and all of those tasty critters. If they do that, the tackle shops are going to be stuck with thousands of dollars of merchandise, which will become useless. They wont be able to sell any more electric reels and all the tackle that goes with it. I don’t know if the Government really understands the severity of our problems when they completely shut down a type of fishing. A total shut down is what they are scheming behind closed doors with the tree hugging lobbyists. These people are absolutely off their rocker.

A few months back we went to a meeting about how they want to shut down permit fishing so that you cannot even target the species. And this is a fish where 99% of the fish caught are released unharmed back to fight another day. They openly admit that their data is wrong and incomplete. They showed us a graph, which was showing landings and one year they had 600,000 pounds landed. Right next to the number there was a symbol. This symbol stated, ‘this number was generated by one fisherman landing one permit.’ So they took the liberty to multiply this one mans catch by 100,000 to come up with a number so that they could show this 600,000 pound number, in order to have a reason to shut down the fishery. This is the same thing the scientist, have been doing with the global warming controversy. I believe that there needs to be some sort of system to keep the scientist honest. It seems that they don’t mind fudging the data as long as the grant money keeps flowing in. Now, that I got that off of my chest, have a great week out there, it’s going to be rainy, but you might as well make the most of it while we still can.

Offshore Fishing Report: Fall Fishing Is Slow This Year, But Mutton Snapper Still Biting on the Reef and Wrecks

Monday, October 26th, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Fall has been falling short of last year’s phenomenal fishing. We really never got a dolphin run this fall like we usually do. This year has definitely changed for the worse. Not only has the economy hit us charter boat captains hard, the fish seem to be on strike as well. Compared to last fall, this fall has fallen short of normal. Water temperatures have been on the cooler side as was the air temperatures as well. The offshore fishing has slowed to a halt.

With the offshore fishing slow, we have been fishing the reef and wrecks to show our clients a fun filled day of catching. The muttons have been biting well, no size to them but plenty of fish from the 6-10 pounds. One day this week we caught over twenty muttons on a half-day charter. It was blowing over twenty kts. So, we stayed close to shore, fishing Hawks Channel and the patches, which have been full of snappers. The yellowtail snapper have been chewing really well, with some large fish being caught. While fishing for yellowtail snapper we have been catching a few muttons on the bottom as well with a grouper here and there. Always bring some live bait while your fishing on the reef to catch some of the bigger fish off of the bottom. Live bait such as ballyhoo, pinfish, grunts, and even small legal lane snappers work great for the groupers and muttons. Remember when fishing for muttons, a lighter leader is best, but if a grouper eats your bait you will most likely loose him. I will try using a heavy leader first to get the groupers, and as the day goes on, I will drop the leader size.

Wreck fishing has been on fire with amberjacks swarming over most of the wrecks. There are a few African pompanos and muttons being caught. I have been using mostly pinfish and small grunts to target all of these fish. I will use a split-tailed ballyhoo also, it will sometimes be the secret bait which most people overlook. When fishing the wrecks for most of the bottom dwellers I prefer to use a 15-20 foot leader from 40-60 pound floro carbon leader. One other important thing you must get down with dropping long leaders to the bottom is that you have to have the boat moving forward while dropping the bait down to the bottom. This will allow the line to scope out a bit and will prevent tangles while dropping down 150-250 feet of water. This past couple of weeks I have caught, cobia, muttons, amberjacks, jack crevales, grouper, African pompano, mangrove snapper, white margates, yellow jacks, and barracudas. I really have been doing well on the deeper wrecks from 180-250 feet of water.

Deep dropping this past week was a little slow with a few tilefish and barrel fish being caught. I have heard a few people got into a few queen snappers but for the most part the deep dropping has been slow except for the tilefish and an occasional snowy. The sword fishing has been great although the weather has been dictating the days, which we are able to fish for them. I went one for three at the beginning of last week. It wasn’t really big one but a keeper never the less. Sword fishing has been taking most of the attention of a lot of people these days, getting a big one can really change your outlook of the offshore fishing. Fall through the winter the sword fishing should be great as the fish from the North East migrate south to warmer waters. We are in a great place down here in the Keys to catch these fish only 30 miles from shore. If you have never though about it, you should, it is some great fishing and can produce a lot of meat for you meat hunters.

Have a great week and hope to see you down here, stay warm until you get down here.

Offshore Fishing Report: Swordfish and Dolphin are Great Right Now

Monday, September 14th, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — The statement that I hear all the time that confirms the notion that fishing can lead to great enjoyment is, “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work”  Just imagine coming back from a fishing trip with a cooler full of fish. The people who have been fishing have indeed been filling their coolers.

The dolphin bite has been great, with many fish in the 20-pound class and bigger. There haven’t been very many small dolphins, which isn’t a bad thing, but this concerns me though. This time of year we should have seen thousands of schoolies all summer long. From what I have seen and what I have been told by other captains is that this year there has been a shortage of schoolies. You see the problem is that the schoolies that we see this year will become the 20-40 pound slammers that we will catch next dolphin season. It just might be that they may have migrated closer to the other side of the Gulf stream, we will just never know, or maybe if we have a bad dolphin season next year then maybe we have some concerns about our future stock of migratory fish.

This week the dolphin were scattered under birds from 900-1100 feet of water which would put them from 22-30 miles from shore. There were some reports of some dolphin activity inside of 700 feet, but too much. There were very few small fish with some reaching fifty pounds. The tuna bite has been hot when the current was running, but in the middle of the week the current just died to nothing.

With the current slowing down, deep dropping has been really easy with lighter weights being able to hold the bottom. This would be the time to hand crank for a chance to break an IGFA record. The deep dropping has been good. Snowys, tilefish and many more deep species are the common catch out in the deep. While you are out there deep dropping, keep a bait ready to pitch to a dolphin that might just swim right up to your boat.

Sword fishing has been really good with many fish being caught up in the 200-pound class. With the light current, dropping down 2000 feet has not been a challenge. The favorite baits for sword fishing has been fresh tuna and dolphin plugs. Although the universal bait “squid” always works too. The new gimmick has been adding a squid skirt over the bait, and depending who you talk to the color of the squid changes. The most common colors have been, glow-in-the-dark green, and dark colors, such as black and red or purple and pink. Looks like sword fishing has continued to evolve, as this is the one reason why people love to fish. Changing times, fish getting smarter, or it may just all be in the complex mind of all of us fisherman.

The reef has been ok, with yellowtails and a few mangroves thrown into the mix. Muttons have been around as with plenty of AJ’s. The better mutton bite has been in the 145-180 foot wrecks and live bottom. Searching the edge of the reef can lead to a few muttons and as well as some grouper too. Get your grouper now before they shut it down. Well actually, it will not affect recreational fisherman, except for the fact that you will only be able to keep one black or gag grouper and two of any other species. But for us charter boats, we will not be allowed to keep any grouper from January 1st through April. Unfortunately, they have made this new law for all of the states in the southeastern region. This will include South Carolina down to Florida. This new law has a few flaws, because they wanted to protect the grouper spawn, but here in Florida the spawn doesn’t occur until April through all of May and some late bloomers in June.

Come on down, the weather is great, a few showers, but what’s with a shower here or there, got to get the fish blood off of you somehow.

Offshore Fishing Report: Rain Slows Down Fishing, but Barrel Fish Bite is Like Clockwork

Monday, August 24th, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Scattered showers has seemed to drive off some of the people off the water, but I have been getting out sporadically. The fishing offshore has been up and down with the dolphin. I have heard some people getting some fish in the weeds in about 600 feet. I sure haven’t seen too much though. The tuna have been biting well all week at the hump. One day the jigs work well, the other day only live bait works. You can always get a few small ones on the troll west of the hump itself.

There has been plenty of AJ action on the hump with some of the fish pushing 80 pounds. We caught a few and then my clients wanted to do something less physical. So we went deep dropping. The snowys are biting ok, but nothing over 20 pounds. The barrel fish bite is like clock work. I think they are one of the best tasting fish that you can get offshore. The trick is to get the small ones, ones that are less than 20 pounds, but for my friends, and me that is a challenge.

My Buddy John Foster has forgot about the way he used to fish, which has gotten him more and bigger dolphin, but he remembered catching more wahoo, and marlin before he started to run and gun. So he planned to blind troll this week and got himself a nice wahoo out off the continental shelf. Hey John, sometimes it is better to just do what comes natural.

The wrecks off of Marathon have been producing some nice muttons and amberjacks mostly, with an occasional African pompano or cobia. Yeah, cobia, it is a little unusual for this time of the year but there have been a few around. The kingfish have been really good in the mornings with deep baits either trolled or drifted, live or dead, it doesn’t seem to matter. I like to use live gogs on a dropper loop rig. They just can’t resist.

If you are unfamiliar with a dropper loop rig I will tell you. I prefer to use a light conventional reel, with at least 40-pound test. I use 50-pound braid, but you don’t have to use braid but it seems to not scope out as much. I attach a 30 foot wind-on leader of 60 pound mono which I tie a dropper loop just after my connection to the braid. I will use a swivel to attach my wire leader, which is #7 wire with a lead hook and a trailer. The lead hook is a 6/0 Mustad ultra point live bait hook and a #1 triple strength treble three inches away. I find that if you try to make your trailer too long you end up foul hooking most of your fish, which can lead to hooks pulling. I place my bait in the water and feed it back until I get to the dropper loop and attach one pound of lead with a snap swivel for easy disconnection. I will try to keep one down about 50 feet and the other all the way at the bottom. Of course I will run some live baits up on the surface. Once you hook a fish you will stop at the dropper loop and because you fish is still 30 feet away you can take off the weight and the fish wont get spooked by the boat and run. Once you get the lead off you will be able to wind the fish strait to the boat. If you have down riggers, well, then you don’t need this rig.

The reef fishing is awesome right now with plenty of yellowtails, mangroves and a few other off the wall species. Day or night the fishing is great, but if your going to fish at night the bite is late, so need to rush out there. There are plenty of gogs, and pilchards on the reef at night so bring some sabikis and a cast net.

Good luck and I will see you out there. If you were wondering about the free cruise to the Caribbean, you have to charter me out to receive the entry form. One lucky couple will get a nice getaway.

Offshore Fishing Report: Where Are the Dolphin?

Monday, August 17th, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — This time of year the dolphin should still be out there in great numbers, but it seems that this year the fish were here but just not as many as last year. For the most part this week the offshore bite was a bit slow with a few fish being caught in the 600-700 feet of water, which is about 12 miles to 18 miles. But as the week went on when the winds picked up there were 6-10 feet seas in 300 feet where I was told from a captain friend of mine who caught a nice catch of gaffers and some schoolies. Almost all the dolphin have been found under birds and large pieces of debris. You need to look for five birds or less, any more birds and you will most likely find skippies or bonitas.

The humps have slowed down, with mainly small tunas even with live bait. I was out there and we went through 300 pilchards and only got a few small tuna around 6-8 pounds. It was tough because of people not being courteous or just not knowing the ethics of a good fisherman. Basically what was happening was on every drift we had one of three other boats out there trolling right through our chum slick and so close one time actually sucked up one of our lines. We feed him all 300 yards of our braid to teach that jerk a lesson. Hopefully he got home, but I hope his seal on lower unit got breached. It was so frustrating that every time we sent up here comes one of these trollers right up the stern of my boat. There was a reason why these guys kept trolling up our slick, we had pilchards jumping out of the water and five frigates diving and tunas busting all behind the boat. We finally got fed up and left; it was the gross negligence of a fisherman with no concern about his fellow fisherman. I do believe that at least one of those guys just didn’t know what he was doing, but the other two were just blatantly disregarding any common sense.

Deep dropping has saved my offshore trips lately. It has been really great conditions for deep dropping. The snowys have been biting; as a matter of fact I just found a new spot, which is holding an enormous amount of snowy groupers. I found a ledge, which stretches about two miles and after catching two snowys we left. I will keep working the rest of that ledge when I have the right charter. I went to one of my usual spots where I get snowys, barrel fish, and tilefish. This time we only got barrel fish, but we got one that would have shattered the world record. It weighed 30 pounds, which is also the biggest one I have ever seen. I believe the record is 17 pounds and normally we get barrels weighing in at 15-25 pounds, I should try for the record one of these days. I still haven’t found any queens yet this year on my usual spots. I have a few spots where I catch queens but the Government has shut down two of the three spots where I catch queens, but I will find other spots where queens gather. We get queen snapper for about four months during the year on a regular basis.

The nighttime reef action has slowed down; the majorities of the fish have spawned already and are moving back where they came from. The snappers on the reef are still biting but not like they have been. It is still worth going nighttime snapper fishing, but your going to have to work a little harder that’s all. During the daytime the muttons have started biting a little better, it was tough year for us in Marathon on the muttons, but they are scattered along the outer part of the reef and on some of the wrecks, the smaller the wreck the better. The yellowtails are chewing and the size has started to get bigger. As we get closer to the Fall the yellowtails will be getting bigger, well it’s not that the fish are getting bigger it’s the fact that big fish will travel up and down the reef looking for food sources. It is very important to feed your yellowtails. People like to lean out the chum, but you really want to push as much chum as your pocket will allow you. The more chum the healthier and the faster your yellowtail will be. The wrecks have been loaded with amberjacks, and the kings are starting to show up in full force. Take advantage of the good kingfish bite, and you can release them if you have no use for them. I like to make sure I have a good de-hooker so not to harm the fish and to retrieve the hook.

Good luck guys. Oh yeah by the way, from this point on I will be giving away a chance to win a cruise for two to the Caribbean for a week. Every client from now on needs to ask for the application form. Thanks for reading my report and don’t forget about how great the bite will be in October. I only have 14 days left; sometimes November can be great too.

Offshore Fishing Report: Scattered Storms, Consistent Dolphin Bite

Monday, June 29th, 2009

MARATHON, Florida Keys — With the warmth comes scattered thunderstorms. The dolphin action has been really great, but the mile traveled doesn’t seem to be letting up. The majority of the dolphins have been ranging from 20-35 miles with some scattered from 12-15 miles as well. The big dolphins are out there, mainly on five or less birds moving fast to the west. This time of the year you will find large flock of birds, but if you’re looking for that trophy you wont find them under the large flocks of birds. Instead, smaller flocks of birds from two to five birds are all you’re looking for. When you find those larger flocks of birds you will find mostly skipjack tuna and blackfin tuna. Now they are great fun for the family but don’t get too close, they spook really easily. I like to put my baits way back. This will help you get your baits over the busting fish without your boat spooking them down.

Sword fishing has been really consistent. Mainly small fish around 100-150 pounds but usually someone gets one over two hundred pounds almost daily. That’s fishing though you just never know when you’re going to get the big one. The deep dropping has been pretty consistent too. We have been getting snowy grouper, tilefish, queen snapper, yellow eye snapper, rosefish, barrel fish, and the ever-elusive mystic grouper. The currents have been good running about 1.5 to 2.5 kts, which is great for deep dropping. While we have been deep dropping either for swords or bottom fish we have had plenty of dolphin swimming up to the boat. So while your dropping keep a couple of pitch baits ready when those dolphin show up.

The yellowtails have been very consistent with some larger fish eating more regularly. When fishing for the larger flag-yellowtail you might only be able to fish one rod at a time. These larger fish are wearier of lines in the water. It’s not the hook that scares them, it’s the line you have in the water. So use new line, because the older line refracts light and causes the yellowtail to see it with ease. The muttons have been biting and it seems everyone in Marathon has been cashing in on this. It has taken longer for the bite off of Marathon to arrive but it’s here now. When a species takes longer to show up they will tend to be around longer than in other areas, which got the bite earlier.

Watch the weather and I’ll see you out there!