Once again, it's time to get caught up with the fishing that has been taking place in the Miami area. Dolphin fishing has been in full stride, with some really great days and a few struggle type days. Throw in a bit of windy weather and on those days, running and gunning becomes only for the stout of stomach. On the calm days, its a pleasure. The fish in general have been anywhere from 250 feet on out to over 20 miles.
Saturday (6/9) Lloyd and Barry Rosen along with their friends Joel and Derek picked one of those windy days to go dolphin fishing. The wind from the NNE/ENE @ 10 - 16 knots took its toll on two of the anglers. The general word on the radio that day was few fish being caught except in close. The in close fish were mostly all throw backs. Despite finding some very decent weedlines, we had to move back in close to find a dolphin to break in Lloyd's new outfit.
Sunday (6/10) evening, friends Herb Krackow and Jason Arena challenged the hard fighting silver king. We had perfect wind conditions from the ESE/SE @ 6 - 9 knots. On our first drift, we got one good jump from a tarpon that threw our hook. A couple of drifts late, Herb hooked up solid with a mean and nasty tarpon that made a beeline for the main channel. It went deep and flowed offshore with the tide, staying in the deep water the entire time. Herb won in the end and released his first tarpon after some boatside pictures. Two drifts later, it was Jason's turn. His fish was much more cooperative and stayed on the south side. We had two more shots that evening, including our last one that hit like a freight train and ran south and inshore to the rocky are. Before we could chase it down, it managed to cut the leader in the corner of its jaw.
Thursday (6/14), friends Terry, Kevin and Gary wanted to catch dolphin. I was helping my friend Captain Gil Gutierrez with this trip as his motor conked out on him and is being repaired. Wind conditions of NNE/ENE @ 3 - 7 knots made for smooth running and gunning. Once again on this day, the dolphin were playing hard to get in the offshore waters. While running to find another spot to fish to, we saw a free jumping sailfish. We got ahead of it and put out two baits. In a matter of minutes, we had a doubleheader sails on. Both fish put on great aerial shows with one coming to the boat fairly quickly for a quick picture. The other fish was a very stubborn one. It too put on some great aerial jumps, leaps, and greyhounding before going deep. Steady pressure got it back to the surface and then it sounded again. Finally we had it boatside where we released the fish. With no dolphin action, we moved back in to the edge in 230 feet. That's where we found the dolphin and released 6 undersized fish. The final fish of the trip was a 20# barracuda that ate a herring on the downrigger.
Thursday (6/14) evening, Brian Bach and his son Tim spent some good quality time together tarpon fishing. The evening started out slow and got much better after 9 PM. Prior to 9, we missed one fish. After 9, we hooked up to a fish that acted like it knew exactly what to do when it felt the hook. It made a beeline straight for one of the swim markers and cut us off. The next fish was much more cooperative and Brian had no trouble working the fish to boatside for a release. The final drift of the evening had Brian hooked up again. He tried to give Tim the opportunity to fight the fish, however, Tim would have nothing to do with his Dad's fish and Brian fought that one also. The tripped ended with a count of 2 for 4 tarpon all caught on crabs.
Saturday (6/16) morning I once again was helping another of my friends Captain Joe McGivern with one of his trips. Joe was also experiencing engine problems. Adam and Desiree Bresovits came over from the Tampa area to catch some dolphin. Bait fishing took a while and the seas weren't exactly calm with the wind WSW @ 17 - 20 knots. The blue/green edge was 10 miles out and once we crossed it, the seas got worse. We found two nice weedlines and worked them both by slow trolling herring in both a south and north direction. The south movement was the sloppiest, however, it was the direction the fish liked best. The sea conditions took their toll in the form of motion sickness, but not before Adam caught 5 dolphin to 18 pounds.
Sunday (6/17) Chuck Williams and his son, Brad picked the perfect weather day to do some running and gunning for dolphin. The wind varied from the SSE/W @ 0 - 7 knots. Bait fishing was a snap and offshore we went. Today it was about 7 miles before we found blue water. There was lots of scattered weed with some weak lines. On one of the lines, we caught and released several undersized fish. The we found a very large raft of grass and caught a few keepers and more throw backs. Mixed in with this group of fish was a very nice 15# wahoo that Brad caught. Some more running and we found some outstanding weedlines 20 miles out from Haulover. This area produced two more keepers before we found a pallet. The pallet gave us one more dolphin. The final fish of the trip was another wahoo. This time Chuck was the angler and the 10# wahoo was caught from under the pallet. The final count was 16 dolphin of which 6 were keepers and 2 wahoo.
The brings me up to date. I've got more dolphin trips as well as tarpon trips this coming week. I'll keep you posted.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Cell
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net
