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?

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.

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!

Well when you only have one day to fish, sometimes you take what you can get. This week was no exception. Even though the conditions were lousy, we still crushed them this week. For us locals, when we are given a day which might be windy or maybe the forecast is predicting rain, we can always fish another day, but when someone only gets one or two weeks out of the year for vacation, they seem to grin and bare it, and usually they get rewarded with a cooler full of fish, too.

Well at least this is what happened with my clients this week. We fished the hump and the tunas were eating everything we threw at them. Doubles and triples all day and our biggest tuna was 20 pounds. Most of the fish were around ten pounds, but some bigger and some smaller were flying over the rails the entire trip. After we had enough for my clients to take home, we played a little game called “catch and release.”  Some people just have never heard of that one before. Only take what you can use or eat…this will ensure that we have more bigger tuna next year. Just because there is no size limit and limit of how many you are allowed to keep, think about the future and how much fun you’re going to have when those fish double in size the following year.

We caught all of them on butterfly jigs, where as last week we were able to troll up some lunkers on a ballyhoo-Islander combo. As a matter of fact we caught all of big ones this way. We would drift over the hump and catch fish and then we would troll back to the spot were we would start our next drift and catch some tuna. Deep dropping wasn’t on fire but we produced some quality fish. Earlier in the week we pulled up some barrelfish, and tiles which could have been the next all-tackle record except for the fact that were using too many hooks and the IGFA seems to frown upon the electric reel.  But it doesn’t matter, its all about the meat elevator.

People ask me if I feel guilty about using the electric reel, and I ask them “Do you feel guilty about driving to the store and picking out a steak at the meat market?” To me it isn’t any different…it is all about “what’s for dinner.”

Later in the week we did a few drops and caught a nice snowy grouper and big 15-pound queen snapper. I guess there are still a few of them still around too. My clients seemed to be avid anglers and extreme sportsman…well they would have to be to go out there in ten-foot seas! Yup, it was big out there but the fish are chewing.

Towards the end of the week I did a little yellow tailing in the afternoon and it was a steady pick of two-pound fish. The first spot I went to was great except for the fact that they didn’t want to eat. I had 3-  to 5-pound yellowtails eating almost out of the bag but they were very line shy and tuned away from the bait every time except twice. We only caught two at that spot but it was so cool to see so many dinosaurs that close to the boat. They looked as big as schoolie dolphin.

The second spot was a complete bust, but as we drove off after fishing for only a half hour, I marked a tremendous school of fish holding close to the bottom. Maybe we didn’t wait long enough, but I needed to put fish in the box and yellowtail can be some of the most challenging fish to catch sometimes.

Our third spot was the ticket, almost all the fish were two pounds or close to it. No sharks like the first spot, and we picked fish till we hit our quota which is ten fish apiece.

Good luck!  And if any of you need a shove in the right direction, don’t hesitate to call. I also can guide your boat so you can learn with your own equipment. You can read all you want, but when it comes down to it, hands-on training seems to work much better for most people. Be safe out there, and be courteous to your fellow anglers.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.