With the summer heat and flat calm seas comes one thing, the mahi fisherman. Each morning fisherman "run and gun" meaning they burn fuel and run until they find sign of fish. For most it is a dream to find a floating log or a frigate bird well offshore as it is usually a score of big mahi, wahoo and more!
This year there is no shortage of weedlines and big patches. This has made it challenging to find the big fish as it seems the small fish are thriving around each patch. With big weed patches comes a wide variety of food source for the small mahi and they grow extremely fast.
When pulling up to these big patches most of the time, the mahi are waiting for you to pitch live pilchards or whatever live bait you have and it is game on.
The life under the patch is incredible from trigger fish to almaco jacks. Upon catching mahi and inspecting their belly contents you will see just about everything including puffer fish.
When we start chumming the fish appear fast and we do our best to weed through the small fish to the bigger fish. It is extremely important to release these mahi without harming them. We use a dehooker to get the hook out without touching them and removing their protective slime. They grow so fast, that this is extremely important to their mortality to be released healthy.
Moving on and looking for frigate birds and floating debris has helped to find the bigger schoolies, but some days you just need a little luck. On the same day we were catching schoolies, a few boats ran into big fish and down in the keys they have been crushing fish up to 30 pounds on the regular.
We also heard that there was a floating tree found South of Key Biscayne that had over 10 wahoo and plenty of big dolphin on it. Man, Would I have loved to film that!
Moving in shallow using the same live baits, we setup in about 100 feet and had immediate action on the deep baits for kingfish, small tuna and sharks.
That's the beauty of fishing South Florida and using live bait, you have so many fish to target and can really have some fun all day long.
That's the report for now. If you are heading out soon, I recommend buying live bait and getting an early start before it gets too hot. You may be done fishing by 10am.
Tight Lines,
Captain Mike