Mild February

February gave us some unusual winter weather. Hardly any cold fronts passed through. We had some unusually calm days fishing in South Florida's beautiful waters, along with some of the usual rough stuff we expect in the winter. In the beginning of the month the Kingfish vanished and some nice Dolphin showed up. We caught a few Sailfish during the month, but not the numbers we've been seeing the last few years.

I believe the weather has a lot to do with the lack of Sailfish. Normally the cold front pushes through, the wind clocks around S-SW-W-NW-N-NE, and while it's blowing out of the northeast and the Gulf Stream is moving rapidly to the north the Sailfish are migrating to the south.
This last month we had too many days when the Gulf Stream edge was way offshore, there was no current inshore, the Gulf Stream was running slow, or on some days the current was running to the south until you got 6 or 7 miles offshore. All of this affects fishing!

One calm day we caught this big Barracuda while live baiting for Sailfish.(a circle hook & mono leader)

Toward the end of the month the Kingfish showed up again. We caught some big ones.




Hopefully the weather will become a little more normal and our fishing in Miami will become a little more normal. 
The last big run of Sailfish was a month ago, I'm ready for it to happen again, now!              www.oldhat.com

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. 
                                                                                                                                        www.oldhat.com

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

Fish Faster

This is what happens sometimes. We book a charter, the people tell us "we just want to go for three hours, we don't know how everyone is going to handle it", so we go out and start fishing. Yesterday we took a young man and his sisters. We got out to 100' of water and caught a Kingfish right away. Then I headed a little further offshore. They said they wanted to bring fish home for dinner. We caught a Dolphin immediately. The girls were getting sea sick so we were asked to return to the dock. On the way back we caught a Bonito. We caught dinner for our customers and were back at the dock in just a little over an hour!
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Fish Fast

Yesterday we had a very short, but very good fishing trip. We picked up a large group of people at Turnberry Isle Resort in Aventura. There was a total of six boats fishing. It's a half hour ride from there to the inlet and they need to be back in four hours. By the time we get out two miles we have two and a half hours to fish.
We started trolling, heading offshore a few miles. Nothing was happening. I knew there were small Bonitos being caught further in, and the tide was just starting to rise, so I headed in. I found a nice rip just south of Haulover inlet. We started live baiting. We caught a nice Kingfish, biggest we've seen in months, a couple Dolphin and a Sailfish.

Once again, the circle hooks that are designed to protect the fish, didn't work! It was a big Sailfish. It was hooked just below the eye. We removed the hook, put the fish back in the water, revived it and watched it swim away.
We fished fast, we caught fish, we were the only boat out of six with a Sailfish!                                                    www.oldhat.com