Spring is definitely in the air. March has been roaring like a lion for the past week and a half. The strong easterly wind has push plenty of dolphin in close. Throw in some sailfish and a few kingfish and you have the ingredients for plenty of good offshore action. The one missing ingredient is having a strong stomach to handle the big sea conditions.
Inshore, the tarpon continue to act like they should be for this time of year. To spice up the action, there are large schools of 10 pound plus jack crevalles tearing up the bait fish. It's an awesome site to see when a stretch of water about 100 yards wide erupts with feeding jacks.
Monday evening, friends Andrew Schultz, Howard Lerner, and Joe Cuozzi sampled the tarpon fishing at Government Cut. The wind was from the E @ 14 - 21 knots. The tide was incoming all evening long. On our first drift before I could get the third rod out, Joe was hooked up to a nice 10 pound jack crevalle. On our next drift, we were treated to the site of jack crevalles busting all around us for a few minutes as they reeked havoc with schools of bait fish. Afterwards, the action slowed down till about 8:15 PM. That's when Joe hooked up with a beautiful 50 pound silver beauty. The fish cooperated very nicely and came right to the boat. Then things got real exciting. The fish made several jumps and decided something must be wrong and took off on a decent run. In the end, Andrew did the honors and released the fish. On the next drift, Howard hooked up with a very strong 70 pound fish. It was determined to get to the deep water of the main channel. We were determined to not let that happen. Howard won that battle of wills, but not before the fish made several blistering runs and beautiful jumps. Once again Andrew did the honors of releasing the fish. That's the way the evening ended, three friends spending some time together catching fish and having a great time.
Tuesday morning, it was Brad Coren fishing offshore for a half day. Bait in Government Cut required lots of searching and picking one or two at a time. Word from the bent one was that the herring were thick so everyone ran out and finished filling our livewells with large herring. We took our time working out to the fishing grounds with a wind from the ENE/E @ 12 - 16 knots. All our action this morning was with dolphin and the majority of hits came on the kite. We did have a small school of the mahi follow up one of the fish that we hooked on the kite. That's when we caught a few more using flatlines. We had a light north current and the sailfish avoided us this morning, however, the dolphin (mahi-mahi) we kept made for some great table fare.
It's springtime and the fish are here. It won't be long before the blackfin tuna start showing up to add to the excitement. Now's the time to call and book a date to get in on the action.
See you on the edge or at the Cut.
Captain Dave Kostyo
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Cell
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net