Kingfish, Kingfish and more Kingfish

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The cold fronts stopped coming. The Sailfish stopped coming. But the Kingfish have returned. For more than a week all we can catch is Kingfish. I'm glad they're here but I would like to see a little more variety.

Record Sailfish Catch in Palm Beach

The West Palm Beach Fishing Club recorded 1,174 sailfish releases among 46 boats fishing the three day 75th annual Silver Sailfish Derby! Get ready, they're heading our way.

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Just like Clockwork

It happens almost every time. The cold front passes through then the Sailfish start passing through. 
We took a lady angler from Australia (Karen) sailfishing. She had caught Striped Marlin, Black Marlin and Blue Marlin. But for the past ten years, she had never caught a Sailfish! 
The weather was perfect, but the western edge of the Gulf Stream wasn't. I was hoping for a distinctive blue/green edge but instead, there was a gradual color change. I trolled south until the color got a little better and then found a slight current rip in 265' of water. We put the kite up and the baits out and after a short wait we had 2 Sailfish on. Karen fished standing up and her friend Jennifer fished from the chair. The fish cooperated. They were each on different sides of the boat. Jennifer's fish came to the boat first, but took a long run after seeing us. Finally, Karen's sailfish came to the side of the boat. We brought it in to take out the hook and record video of Karen and her first Sailfish. Jennifer's fish was stubborn but eventually posed for a quick photo. 
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We put the kite back up in the sky, the live baits back in the water and started all over again. We waited a while until a Sailfish ate one of the baits, then it charged the boat, leaping and looking menacing, heading straight for the cockpit with 2 lady anglers terrified. I pulled the boat ahead quickly, before the fish could jump in. The fish shook his head and spit the hook. An adrenaline rush for everyone on board. A little while later we hooked up #4 Sailfish. This one was Karen's second Sailfish catch & release. We also caught a Dolphin and jumped off another Sailfish before the day was over. Everyone had a great time, all the fish were released unharmed except for the Dolphin which became a delicious meal.

Slow Days

While we were waiting for the next cold front to pass through we experienced some slow, beautiful days for fishing, but not so great for catching! It's more tiring for Charlie and me when it's like that. Most captains won't talk about days like that, let alone report them. Even when it's slow we manage to catch something most of the time. But sometimes there's nothing biting your bait. We had the second day of nothing for the year 2011 recently. It was a painful experience for Charlie and me. Some of the other captains got out their electric reels and dropped down 800' to catch some very small bottom fish. Our customers had fished before and caught nothing with someone else at another location and told us you can't be lucky all the time. They let us off the hook, but we still felt miserable. 

Now let's report what we did catch during that slow week. We caught Bonitos (large & small), Skipjack Tunas, some Blackfin Tunas, Dolphin (some small ones), Kingfish, a Wahoo, and a small Sailfish. Remember, I did say the fishing was slow!            www.oldhat.com