What an exciting and interesting September we are having. My sister and I took off on the 4th and flew to Montana to visit Yellowstone National Park.
The Bear that almost got Sue
While we were away Abie ran a charter on the 5th. Mariano and his guest caught a couple sailfish, a couple kings, a couple barracudas and some assorted bottom fish for a great day on the water.
While they were catching fish we were enjoying views of raging rivers, towering waterfalls and boiling geysers. The temperatures in the park ranged from 30 to 70 degrees every day. What a nice treat that cool weather was.
My sister is a real nature lover. It made my trip perfect the first time she saw buffalo standing on a ridge about 200 feet from the car. Then we had buffalo on the side of the road. Then the buffalo were blocking the road as they lumbered wherever they pleased.
By day one's finish we had added a few cow elk to the 100 buffalo we had seen.
Sunday we were on the road by 7 AM searching for big game animals of the park. In the first ten minutes we found a handsome antelope standing above the road, just inside the park entrance.
Ten minutes latter we were watching a bull elk bugle for his harem. He sure took off after them when they appeared out of the woods.
By nine in the morning we had added a big mule deer buck, white tail buck and two moose to our tally of big game animals. Before noon we had tallied a pack of wolves, two herd of antelope and at least one hundred buffalo to add to our list.
Monday we saw most of these big game animals again plus I conned my sister into getting too close to a grizzle bear. She outran the bear, but got great pictures of it's teeth.
Tuesday we drove through the Tetons, Jackson Hole, a lot of Idaho and into Salt Lake City for an early Wednesday departure back to Miami.
Sunday, the 13th we ran to Bimini for the next week. We would be fishing with a fleet of 25 Duskys for the rest of the week.
Monday morning Ralph and Mike Brown, Abie and I ran to a wreck on the bank east of Bimini. There we found a huge school of very hungry cobia, slashing barracuda, blacktip sharks and assorted bottom fish.
We caught cobia on plugs, jigs, live bait and dead bait. Abie caught his first fish ever on fly. It was a 25 pound cobia. I guess her better give up fly fishing, because he is at the top of his game.
One of Jason's Catches
After a dozen sharks, a couple dozen cudas, a bunch of assorted jacks and assorted bottom fish, we called it an early day.
Tuesday we slammed a pile of yellowtail snappers.
Wednesday we caught a bunch of sharks and barracudas on plugs and flies, a cobias, loads of assorted jacks, a record number of queen trigger fish and assorted bottom fish with Rick Ryals from Florida Sportsman.
Andrew with His Big Yellowtail
Thursday we fished with Baron, Tami, Andrew and Daniella from North Miami. We had a great time as the action centered around watching Andrew progress from struggling to get a bite, to catching parts of yellowtails, to whole fish and finally the biggest yellowtail snapper of the whole fleet for the whole week.
Friday Jason, Jennifer, John and Nicole wore us out catching sharks, cudas, snapper jacks and anything else that swam in range.
Jason stole the show on Saturday morning by catching the fleets biggest king, amberjack and the two biggest tuna for the whole week.
We even survived 6 assorted beach and evening cocktail parties during the Dusky week.
Sunday morning we ran back to Miami. That afternoon we were joined by Rick ,John and Adam for a swordfish trip.
We had no action deep dropping for swordfish that afternoon, but the fish turned on that night.
Rick with his Swordfish
Rick caught his first swordfish ever without a hitch, except that his son John caught a swordfish at the same time, making for some fun and hectic moments.
20 minutes latter we had Adam hooked up with a swordfish. This time things got a little interesting as Adam moaned and groaned while suggesting he may have to give up the rod because his fish was too big and tough for one man to handle. Adam hung in there and we got a tag in his swordfish and some good pictures before we released it.
Well September is off and running. That means the best time of year for swordfish stretches over the next 3 months. The fall migration of mullet, mackerel, bluefish, mutton snapper, yellowtail snapper, king mackerel, tuna, dolphin and more will be causing some super fishing days.
We will be discussing all this fishing action at Dusky Sport Center on Thursday October 1st at 6 PM. If you want to live the action by catching some of these fish, e-mail me at captbouncer@bellsouth.net.