Winter Fishing in the Florida Keys

Winter Fishing in the Florida Keys

 

As a second generation fisherman, I have been fishing in Marathon Florida since I was a kid. I have learned that from reef fishing to offshore fishing, winter is always a great time to get out on the water! There is a plethora of fish species to catch and just as many ways to catch them. My favorite species has always been the king fish because they are plentiful and fun to catch.

This week, we braved the high winds and cold to get out in the keys and we were rewarded with a great bite! Yellowtails filled our boxes, we also caught a few mutton snappers, and topped off our fishing trip with cero mackerel and king fish. The fish we’ve been catching haven’t been huge but they have been very plentiful, keeping my anglers so busy that they hadn’t even had the chance to eat their lunch on most days.

Heading offshore, the dolphin and wahoo have been a hit-or-miss, but deep dropping for snappers, Tilefish, and snowy grouper have been very successful. Tuna fishing is red hot when we can get out to the hump but this time of the year you really have to pick your day.

Sail fishing this week has picked up with the constant bombardment of cold fronts. The north wind drives them nuts! For the best results, live baiting either with pilchards, gogs, or ballyhoo is the way to go.

This winter, get out of the cold, come down to Marathon Florida and let Sweet E’nuf Charters show you our little piece of paradise in the heart of the Florida Keys!

Mutton Honey

Wintertime has come early this year and as the weather cools the water, fish will venture towards the deeper, more stable water temperatures.  February is a great month to fish down here in the Keys.  The mutton snapper bite will be very stable throughout the winter on the wrecks and reefs.  There are many ways way to fish for muttons, but I believe the most productive way is live bait.  Muttons can be tricked to eat many different types of artificial lures and most small live baits.  As with muttons, groupers and amberjacks will also be very abundant on the wrecks and reefs as well.

Fishing the reefs for muttons may be different than what you think.  Most people think of reefs and they assume that the depth of water is from 25-100 feet.  Well, they are mostly right.  We also have reefs as far out as 200 feet.  They generally have low relief and can be stacked with muttons.  There are bands of reef that stretch east and west ranging in depths of 125-200 feet of water.  I will scout areas where I have caught fish in the past, and what I am looking for is bait.  Looking at your depth finder, look for what most of us call fuzzy bottom.  This fuzzy bottom is scattered bait such as tomtates and other small grunts and porgies.  This is the primary food source for the muttons while they are out on these reefs.

These reefs also have an abundant supply of small crustaceans, which muttons can’t resist.   Occasionally I get snagged on these deep reefs, but by having a rig with a breakaway lead you will save most of your rig if you do encounter a snag.  I will fish these areas where I mark bait.  It takes a while sometimes until you find out where the fish are hanging out on the reef.  One day they will be right on top, other days they will be in the sand, either inside or outside of the reef.  Using a three-way swivel rig or swivel bead swivel method, drifting or slow trolling your bait back and forth on these deep reefs you will eventually find out where the fish are gathering.  Once you find the fish, you will find them in similar locations on other reefs.

Wrecks are highly guarded so don’t bother asking any of the local charter boat captains.  But keep your eye on your bottom finder when you are running in 100-300 feet, you just might find some.  I have been given some of the numbers that I have and traded with other captains to accumulate about twenty wrecks in a thirty mile area.  I have found about dozen on my own, by just looking at the bottom while traveling from spot to spot.  A good way to find wrecks is to look for bait gathering on the surface or on your depth sounder.  If you are marking lots of bait, there is a good chance there is wreck near by or a very healthy reef.  There is a neat website that has wrecks so you can start with a few.  This website is www.cyberangler.com/reefs/.

I mainly use live bait on the wrecks, but I do have a few friends who love using jigs for muttons and groupers.  I do use butterfly jigs for the amberjacks when the kingfish are not swarming, because otherwise it can get quite expensive.  Don’t over look dead bait; it can work great some days.  I prefer split-tailed ballyhoo or bonita strips for my dead bait.  When using dead bait I will hold my rod high and when I get a bite I will drop the tip and allow the mutton or grouper to inhale the bait especially on long baits such as ballyhoo and bonita strips.  I make my leaders long, 15-20 feet to be exact.  I use the long leaders for two reasons, one is to get the bait away from the bouncing lead, and the other is to ensure the mutton snapper gets the bait in his mouth before you start reeling.  I always use at least 10oz of lead or more.  I find that sash weights or bank sinker type weights tend to hold better than egg sinkers.  Keeping the weight close to the bottom is usually sufficient, if the lead comes up about ten feet or so is ok too.  If you find that your lead is having a hard time staying down, and already have over a pound on, try backing up to your line to keep your lead on the bottom.  We call this a controlled drift, and on really windy days it is the only way to go.   When the wind and current allow it, I can literally troll my bait across the bottom in search of a hungry mutton, and I always watch for my lead to hit the bottom every once in a while.  You can also just drift and systematically cover the bottom until you find the muttons.  Having a long leader allows the bait to stay close to the bottom where the muttons food is naturally found.   I have caught muttons half way up while reeling in after a drift; so even high in the water column you can catch these tasty critters.

Fishing wrecks may require a little boat handling skills on windy days to ensure that you are able to keep your bait in the zone as long as you can.  I find that most of my bites will occur fairly close to the wreck.  But don’t pull up and start over until you get a tenth of a mile away from the wreck as muttons circle the wreck at different distances.  Just like the deep reef, when you find an area near the wreck where you caught one, you should be able to hit that spot again and again.  Some people like to anchor up on these wrecks, but that requires precise anchoring.  It may take you a few times to get it right, but when the bite goes off, it best behooves you to be positioned right.  Sometimes anchoring can diminish your chances of catching a lot, due to the fact that the fish are not located right behind your boat.  Before anchoring I would drift around and try and find out where the fish are eating.  Then after determining where the school is feeding, anchor up so that the spot is right behind the boat.  When anchoring we use bombs, which are cut bait and soft chum mixed with sand.  You can place this mixture in a paper bag and drop it to the bottom.  When the bomb hits the bottom it explodes expelling chum and chunks, which the larger fish will snack on until they see your bait.  There are some cons about the bombs, as they attract sharks and triggerfish.  Sharks are bad because once they key on you, getting your fish to the surface in one piece can be almost impossible.  Triggerfish will kill your bait or even remove it from your hook without you knowing it, so use the bombs only as a last ditch effort on a slow bite.

The tackle I use for mutton fishing is light, but effective.  You will loose some big groupers but if you want to target muttons, but the lighter the better.  I use 50-pound braid with a 10-20 foot shock leader of 60-pound.  This shock leader has two jobs.  It gives you a little stretch as the fish runs hard and it also allows my lead to slide along the mono and not the braid.  I use the swivel bead swivel method, which acts like a three-way but doesn’t allow the fish to feel the lead and gives you great sensitivity for even the lightest of bites.  By sliding a bead before the swivel it will not allow the lead to slide past your knot from the braid to mono.  Then I slide on another bead before tying on my swivel, which my 15-20 foot leader is attached to.  This extra bead keeps your lead swivel from catching on your knot to your swivel from the leader.

So to simplify this rig, slide a bead on, then slide a swivel on, slide another bead and tie another swivel to your shock leader.  The swivel that slides I attach one foot of 30-pound where I attach my lead for the break away.  I use 30-50 pound floro carbon for my leaders, but regular mono for the shock leader.  The shock leader needs to stretch and mono stretches more than floro carbon.

As for my hooks, I prefer to use a circle hook, it allows for non targeted species to be released unharmed, and for my inexperienced anglers who have a hard time keeping the line taught at all times.  The circle hooks also tend to catch fish in the corner of the mouth so that the fish’s teeth aren’t rubbing on your leader.  They don’t have very sharp teeth but with enough pressure and time the muttons will have no problem severing through your leader if they are gut hooked.

I set my drags light because muttons don’t normally run for cover, but instead high tail it for open water.  If there is a lot of structure where you are fishing you may want to tighten up your drag a bit and use some 50-pound floro.  I like circle hooks, and the one I use is made by Mustad and are called Circle Demons.  I generally use 8/0 and 9/0 in this style; to me it is like Velcro to an Afro if you ask me.  I rarely miss bites and that is important when my clients are fishing.  So get out there try something new, and take these tips for your next fishing trip down here in the Keys.

Offshore Fishing Report: Going Deep And Scoring Big

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Boy the fishing has really gotten red hot down here.  My buddy David Rogers from Colorado has come to fish for the week but we were only able to fish one day and dive one day before the wind picked up and forced us off the water.

We had a game plan of Florida Keys deep dropping fishing to get some tasty critters from deep.  Most of the morning we were hitting some of my usual snowy grouper spots, but there was no current.  When deep dropping from 600-700 feet of water we need current to stimulate the fish.  We hit 4 spots with no luck.  I finally made up my mind to go deeper and find some current.  I headed out to my barrel fish spot where we finally found some current; it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough.  We made two drops with a barrel fish on each drop.  Barrel fish is like eating grouper, but a little more firm.  I prefer to freeze these fish before eating to tenderize the meat.  My clients consider barrel fish one of the best fish they have ever eaten.  We caught one around 20 pounds and the other was close to 40 pounds, which is a jumbo.  Dave likes to take home multiple species so that he has an assortment of fish to eat over the winter time where in Colorado most of the water is covered by ice.

After we had enough of barrel fish, we were headed east to find some current further inside as we looked for dolphin.  We found a barrel floating with loads of baitfish underneath it.  It looked very fishy and so we threw some bait in the water and as soon as it hit the water, the baitfish (Baby Almaco Jacks) tore up our baits.  Dave was actually catching them with a bare hook.  Shortly after a few jigs with the butterfly jigs, five dolphins swam past the boat.  We pitched some live bait and the biggest of the five ate the bait and we were on.  We pitched more live bait, but they seemed to be not interested.  We tried every trick in the book, but we were only able to catch three of the five fish, but since they were big dolphin we were ok with that.  The weights of these dolphins were from 15-20 pounds and this size fish has a very good yield of meat.  We were able to get almost 30 pounds of fillets off of them, which is a considerable amount of meat.

It was starting to get late, so we headed back to fish the Marathon wrecks close to shore to see if we could get a few muttons before heading home.  We were at the right wreck because as soon as the bait hit the bottom we were on — nice ten-pound mutton.  Before the end of the drift, we dropped down another bait and scored another ten-pound mutton.  It was so cool! I love it when the muttons bite this well.  We made another drift and yielded one about 20 pounds.  With a box full of fish we headed home for some cocktails while I filleted the fish.  Fishing couldn’t have gone any better this day…a nice snowy wouldn’t have hurt anything, but I guess they will be waiting for my next trip.

Are you looking for a great time to come down to the Keys?  I would recommend that you come on down during the fall! The weather is changing and can cause some rough days, so when booking your vacation, be sure to book your fishing trips early in your vacation — that way, if we experience some bad weather, we can reschedule later in the week.  Fishing is great this time of the year with many different types of fish to catch, and the heat is dwindling away, making it quite refreshing to fish. 

The fall is the time when our swordfishing gets red hot.  We catch more fish over 200 pounds this time of the year than any other.  I offer day and night time swordfishing charters for these giants of the deep, so keep that in mind when you are booking your trip.  The sailfish are starting to show up!  It is only a matter of time before we go gung ho for them and the smoker kings.  Sweet E’Nuf Charters specializes in live bait and light tackle fishing.  Lets go fishing!

To view details about a dolphin fishing charter or other offshore & deep sea fishing charters in Marathon, FL, click here.

 

Offshore Fishing Report: Catching the Rarest Fish in the Keys

This past week we fished 40 miles west of Key West for yellowtail and grouper.  The bite was on for the yellowtails.  We placed a block of chum in the bag and it wasn’t five minutes when we were pulling in our first flag yellowtail.  We had blue runners about five pounds swimming around the boat busting on fry which was an incredible site to watch.  During the summer the snappers are spawning and fry are all over the place and this brings in other fish that feed upon them.  For about three hours we caught jumbo yellowtail and then we finally got a bite one the bottom rod.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have you ever seen a Mako shark eat a swordfish?

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Wow, what a beautiful week we had out on the water.  The weather was almost perfect the entire week.  We still didn’t find many dolphin but while were searching we came across an unusual floater.

We found half of a large swordfish floating, with a mako shark circling.  The swordfish was cut in half, with it’s cobolt blue color still intact.  I cut a chunk off of the swordfish and tried to bait up the mako but he wasn’t interested.  I guess after eating 100 pounds of swordfish he was full.  I t would be just a matter of time before he got hungry again, and I was hoping it would be soon.  I tried to remove the swordfish from the water but the mako just left when we did that.  So I tied the swordfish to the boat and dumped it back in the water.

It took only a few minutes for the mako to come back.  I kept the chunk of bait right behind the carcass, and we just watched this magnificent shark swim around the boat for over a half an hour.  The shark kept swimming circles around the boat and with every minute passing I got more and more frustrated.  I finally took off the bait and pulled in the swordfish.  I took the hook and stuck in the meat of the carcass where the mako had bitten him in half.  I proceeded to let the swordfish out on a dock line.

After ten minutes the mako came up to investigate his prize.  Shortly after that he took a bite out of the swordfish and it was so amazing to see how effortlessly he cut through it.  I noticed that my line was moving away from the swordfish and I set the hook.  I stuck him good, thumbing the drag and repetitively set the hook until the fish thrashed a bit.  He didn’t go anywhere; he just swam around the boat like there was nothing wrong.  Knowing what a mako is capable off I powered the boat away from the fish and then he realized that there was something wrong and he sounded peeling 400 feet of line in seconds.  We fought the fish for about an hour when he finally came up for some jumps and shortly after that we lost him.  He must have gotten wrapped up in the leader and it parted in the middle of a forty-foot leader.  Even though we didn’t land him it was an epic adventure.

The dolphins haven’t shown up yet, but there are a few fish out there.  I have found some schoolies in close and a few scattered big fish anywhere from 12-30 miles offshore.  The tunas have slowed down at the hump, but if you get there early or stay out late you can manage a decent catch.  Trolling around really has been a waste of time; if you run and gun you will find more fish under the birds.

The deep dropping was awesome this week.  We found lots of snowys, a few queen snappers, tilefish, rosefish, and barrelfish.  One of the spots we limited out on snowys on the first drop.  We dropped two rods and got a double and a single.  You are only allowed to have one snowy per person, so don’t do another drop in the same place because you are liable to catch another one.  Usually we only catch one or two snowys in one spot but they seem to be on every spot I drop on.  We had to stop deep dropping so we didn’t go over our limit.  I do have spots where snowys won’t be.  We went out to 1,100 feet of water and got some rosefish, and a barrelfish.  This is the time of the year where I do very well catching snowys.

If a reef fishing charter is more your style, it has been great.  We caught lots of yellowtail and groupers.  I found that the bite is starting to turn on in the deep water.  You will find larger yellowtails in 75-100 feet of water.  Using oats and lots of chum you can get the big boys up in the water column, where your odds of landing the big ones increase.  We did get a few large mangroves on one spot; most of them were from 2-4 pounds, which is decent.  I was fishing in 88 feet of water with a jig tipped with a small pinfish.  This is also how we caught all those grouper. 

Once this wind lets down here in Marathon, get offshore to fish and drop while you still can.  And don’t forget to check all of your safety equipment…you never know when you might need it.

 

Offshore Fishing Report: Cold Water Moves Into Marathon

MARATHON, Florida Keys — Cold and blusterous, seems to be a theme this year.  There has been cold water plaguing us here in Marathon.  This was caused by the Gulf Stream shooting into the Gulf of Mexico and forcing out cold water, which inevitably was forced along the Keys and it was the reason why the Gulf Stream or warmer water was so far out this week.  If you think of a bucket that has been filled to the top with cold water, then add a hose with warm water; the water leaving the bucket first will be cold and then a mix of warm and cold water.  This is what we are going to experience this coming week.  There will be very large spikes of warm water all along the Keys.  By heading either East or West you will find the warm water when heading out offshore.  Listening to the weather report by NOAA you will be able to find out if your homeport is in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream.  If it isn’t, you will either travel far offshore or up and down the road where the current and warmer water comes closer to shore.  Fishing in these cold water is a waste of time and money.  Find the warm water and you find the fish.

Offshore has been awfully bleak.  There has been a few dolphin around the edge of the warm and cold water.  Off of Marathon this week it was 30 miles out and further.  There is warm water heading our way for the rest of the week.  The Gulf Steam ought to be no more than ten miles from shore if not closer.  This warm water will only be here for two to five days before another body of cold water from the Gulf of Mexico is pushed around Key West and then up the Straits of Florida.  Most people think we are fishing the Atlantic Ocean, but in fact we are not in the Atlantic but the Florida Straits.

The reef fishing in Marathon has been fair with some yellowtail biting even though there hasn’t been any current in three weeks.   The water has been dirty green and cold, not a great combo for a normally warm water-loving, cold blooded animal.  The yellowtails are there and schooling in the chum, but they are not motivated to eat.  I fished for yellowtails once this week and we got our limit but it took a while.  The grouper action is hot just about everywhere.  From 20 feet of water to 160 feet the blacks have been on a rampage, eating most baits.  It is too bad we can’t even keep one a day.  A few muttons have been taken on the reef from what my friend have told me, we didn’t see any though.  The kingfish are pretty much all over the place; they seem to be digging the cold water.  Cobias have been spotted in great number on the ocean side following rays and turtles.  I wish I were out there to see it, I was told it was pretty impressive, with many fish in the 50-pound class and bigger.

Sail fishing was a bit bleak in Marathon, but if you traveled twenty miles East or West the bite was decent.  There has been cleaner and warmer water in these areas, which have been teeming with sails and dolphin.  Set up on the edge of the reef from 80-130 feet for the sails.    Many multiple hook ups are possible and don’t forget about the wahoo, they are still around.  My buddy John Foster got a fifty pounder this week.  By using a little wire on your sailfish rig you can capture some of the toothy critters, which are in the same areas as the sails.  Six inches of number Four or Five wire will work just fine and the sailfish won’t even know it was there, especially if you’re using ballyhoo.

Check the weather reports and fish in areas that look fishy don’t just choose an area out of a hat, and be precise with your rigging.  By using all the tools and information available today the fisherman can be very productive these days, but when you fish blind sometime you get lucky and sometimes fall down.  So use everything at your disposal from the Internet to the electronics on your boat, and be safe and good luck.

 

To find out more about Marathon deep sea & offshore fishing charters, click here.