Boy did June start off rough. Of course May ended even rougher I guess. Well June has been a very good month for catching fish.
We fished with our good friends Don and Sandy on the 4th with calm seas and good north current. The fishing was a little slow, but we did catch a sailfish, a small dolphin and a barracuda. That evening we fished with Big John and his niece, Jessica, who caught her first tarpon after 3 jumped off.
Jessica caught her first tarpon
We went to Bimini with the Crowder gang on the 6th. Over the next 4 days we caught yellowtail snappers, cero mackerel, a few gray snappers, big amberjacks and plenty of good times.
We fished off Miami Beach on the 11th and caught 4 dolphin to 15 pounds, a couple barracudas and a hammerhead shark for Dean and his guest. That night we fished with Big John and caught several tarpon on live crabs.
The next two days we fished with the Pressmans and caught several small dolphin, 2 sailfish and bonito.
Brad Orvieto brought his now grown sons Brett and Drew out tarpon fishing on the evening of the 12th. They caught 3 out of 4 tarpon that ate their live crabs off south beach. These fish were 75 to 95 pounds.
The ocean remained very calm on the 14th when Joe and Laura Doll joined us for the day. It was a slow day, but we did manage to catch and release two sailfish and add and nice gray grouper to provide a couple good dinners to the Dolls home menu.
George had his hands full catching Jaws
The Blakes joined us for a trip from 1 to 9 PM on the 15th. I warned them that fishing was slow, but we would do our best. After Sandy caught and tagged a sailfish, tagged one of her 5 dolphin, released a 14 pound king mackerel and put a 30 pound blackfin tuna in the fish box and we took a DNA sample from her 75 pound tarpon before releasing it, she said she would fear seeing good fishing. This was Sandy Blakes first Gold Coast Grand Slam. Which is the catch of a sailfish, tarpon and dolphin on one trip.
We went back to Bimini with Rick and Mathew Aizpuru and John Mahoney on the 16th. We caught loads of small dolphin on jigs and flies to start things off. Then it was solid yellowtail action on bait and flies for several hours. Day two was fly fishing for sharks and barracuda. Rick and Mathew caught sharks of 35, 60 and 80 pounds on a ten weight fly rod with my Tibor fly reel. They also caught 3 barracudas on fly. When ever one guy was fly fishing the other two would be throwing plugs or bait on spinning tackle to catch cudas and sharks. The action was non-stop. We made another stop to catch lane snapper for a great fish dinner. The last day of their trip was devoted to blue water. John caught a sailfish over 60 pounds. We missed 3 more sails. The dolphin were MIA. We did some bottom fishing which produced some lane and yellowtail snapper and a big bonito. On the way home the next day John fished alone with us and caught 10 dolphin from 5 to 15 pounds and a nice tripletail.
Tony got the big king
The George Bubrick group had some good fishing in Bimini as well. George and Tony had kings of over 50 pounds and over 30 pounds using live yellowtails for bait. Young George and Natalie each had cero mackerel over 11 pounds and Natalie added a 15 pound king. Loads of smaller ceros, tons of yellowtail snappers and gray snappers, a nice nassau grouper and a big shark rounded out their action.
Saturday night we went swordfishing with the guys from Reel Adventures fishing show. We had 3 swordfish bites and tagged and released a valiant 44 inch gladiator of the sea.
The Orvieto guys joined us again yesterday. We set out at 2 PM and filled the live well with herring by 3. We fished in 120 to 200 feet of water off Key Biscayne till 8:30 and caught one and a half bonito ( a great show near the boat by a bull shark caused the half), a nice king mackerel and 2 out of 5 sailfish we had on. On the way home we stopped off South Beach and put out the live crabs. Between 8:45 and 10 PM they caught and released 3 out of 4 tarpon from 60 to 70 pounds.
Fishing is great. It is time for snook and swordfish as well as a grab bag of day time fishing. Send me an e-mail at captbouncer@bellsouth.net and let's plan a fishing trip.
