The action offshore has been mostly of the dolphin variety. It's been lots of hunting and searching to find keeper size fish. If you just want action and plenty of it, then the under sized schoolie dolphin will keep you happy. The weedlines have been from 5 - 18 miles out on most days. When you find birds, they usually will put you on fish. You just have to learn to read their flight pattern. Throw in a few wahoo and if you can find some good size floating debris, add tripletail and bar jacks to the catch.
Meanwhile, in on the reef, the summer bonito are starting to show up. There are some kingfish being caught of various sizes with most of them on the small side. When there is good north current and clean water, add a few sailfish to the variety.
That's the general run down, now lets get to the daily action reports.
On Monday (6/18) Carlos Ochoa, his wife Karina, son Anthony, and sister Yadi spent a beautiful 3/4 day out in the blue water. The wind was from the E/SSE @ 2 - 6 knots. Today we found large patches of grass and the first one we came to had plenty of small dolphin on it. They responded very well to the 1/4 ounce Kaplan jig as well as chunks of herring. Some more running and soon we found shearwaters and frigate birds that put us back on some more small fish. Everyone was having a blast catching dolphin, especially Anthony. When the day was over, we had conservatively caught 3 dozen fish, with most of them being released. On the way in to TNT marine Center, we counted iguanas along the seawalls in Keystone Point and set a new record with 36 sightings.
Tuesday (6/19), was another trip with my good friend Captain Gil Gutierrez. Our guests for that day were Alex and William. The wind was NNE/E @ 5 - 10 knots. Bait was a cinch with massive schools of herring outside of Haulover Inlet. Further south, we added some pilchards and out to the color change we went. It didn't take long before the small schoolies had us surrounded. After catching several, we moved offshore some more in search of larger fish. We found them under birds and soon had several in the box to about 10 pounds. We spent some time butterfly jigging on several of the deeper wrecks with no success. We ended the trip with a large barracuda catch and release on the downrigger.
Wednesday (6/20) was an evening tarpon trip with Steve Todd. We had perfect drift conditions with wind from the SE/SSW @ 10 - 12 knots. Live crabs were the bait and Government Cut the place. Steve saw plenty of action with fish in the 50 - 120 pound class. At the end of the evening, the final count was 3 for 4.
Thursday (6/21), the first trip of the day was with friends Oscar Marrero and Ramon Cruz. Having a good time was the first objective with taking home some dolphin a close second. The wind was S/SW @ 7 - 12 knots. Bait was a snap once again. The search began and we hit the jackpot thanks to several frigate birds and terns that put us on some large patches that held some large schoolie size fish. We stuck with the area even after several boats joined us and then moved on. It paid off with several more fish as well as some smaller ones that were released. Final count was 20 fish with 15 keepers and plenty of fillets for dinner with their families.
Thursday (6/21) afternoon, it was John and Arlie Kirk along with their friends Ed and Stacey. The wind picked up considerably this afternoon to S @ 17 - 20 knots. We took our time moving offshore and found large weedlines. Just like on previous days, the birds put us on fish and soon everyone was catching and releasing small dolphin. We saw a large fish
greyhounding toward the weedline as we approached the area and while we were catching the smaller ones, it finally showed up to the outside of the main school of fish. I tossed a live pilchard in front of it and John was hooked up and doing battle. The fish made about 4 runs away from the boat and jumped at least 6 times. Everything was going fine when the hooked pulled and everyone was disappointed. The fish won its freedom fair and square. We went back to catching more fish by trolling the Kaplan jigs. Final count for this afternoon was about 36 fish with one keeper and one fish tale about the one that got away.
Friday (6/22) was an evening tarpon trip with Pat Swantner. Wind was S/WSW @ 17 - 20 knots. Once again it was live crabs at Government Cut. After several drifts and just before I threatened to make a major move, we got the hit we were looking for. The first jump left Pat almost speechless and amazed at the sight of the fish flying out of the water. The entire battle lasted 35 minutes and took us on a tour to the main channel and out to about the third red marker before we finally got the pictures we wanted and released the fish. We saw no further action this evening, however, it was Pat's first tarpon and it left him wanting more.
Saturday (6/23) was a full day with Geoff and Helen Ehrlichman. Today we had the westerly type wind of W/WSW @ 0 - 16 knots. We started by running offshore for some dolphin and found little to nothing to fish to. Even the birds were absent. The radio was buzzing with various groups of anglers calling each other to find out if someone had found the fish. The general answer was still looking, seeing, and finding little. We decided to run back in and fish the edge. That's where we got the skunk out of the boat with small undersized dolphin along the blue/green edge. We trolled the Kaplan jigs and once we pulled the school to us, it was a snap to cast the jigs at them and watch as they chased it and caught it. Both Helen and Geoff were having a blast catching and releasing a total of 11 fish. Next, we set up a drift and spent the remainder of the trip trying to find some sort of action. We got cut off a few times and finally convinced a kingfish to eat a bait presented on the downrigger.
Saturday (6/23) evening it was a tarpon trip with Dave and Christina Ziegler. Wind from the S @ 13 - 19 knots had the south side of Government Cut a bit on the rough side. We used the shelter of both jetties to have much more pleasant sea conditions on the north side. It required a lot of work and persistence, however, it paid off when Christina got to do battle with her first tarpon. The fish was a line burner and had Christina talking to it while she fought to regain line only to see it melt off the reel several times over. She had that I'm not giving up attitude and it paid off as she released her first tarpon. She was ready for another one, however, it was not to be this evening and it was another 1 for 1 evening.
Sunday (6/24) morning was an all ladies trip with Eileen Clark and her friends Dana Darche and Ellie Miller. We had pleasant sea conditions with wind from the N/NNE @ 4 - 7 knots. We bought pilchards from Greenline Mike at Haulover and then added a few dozen herring before heading out. We worked various weedlines and large patches out to 14 miles with no results. We ran out to 22 miles and found nothing. On our way back in our friends the birds put us on fish along a very weak scattered weedline. The fish didn't stay around very long and we kept 1 of the 3 fish we caught. The good old Kaplan jig came through for us again. We found another area of large patches on the way in and worked it over good with no results. The morning ended all to quickly and we headed back in still searching but not finding any other fish.
Sunday (6/24) afternoon, Dave and Christina Ziegler were back for a trip out to the reef. We had wind that clocked around from the E to WNW @ 0 - 13 knots. As the afternoon progressed, the storms built to our west and headed in our direction. Up to that point, we were scrapping the bottom of the barrel with a remora for our efforts. I decided to take the plunge and head offshore in hopes that the dolphin fishing had improved over the morning's efforts. At just over 10 miles out, I stopped as we had seen very little to fish to. We discussed whether or not we want to run through the storm that had Haulover totally blanked out from view. Inshore from us, a bird caught my eye and as we ran toward it, we saw another and then a third. A pilchard was slow trolled for about 5 seconds before a schoolie dolphin picked it up and we were in the fish one more time again thanks to the birds. When the school came up, we caught a few more on bait and then switched to the Kaplan jigs. This school stayed with us for a while and then Christina saw a much larger fish. Out went a live bait and we continued to fish the jigs. I noticed the live bait appeared to be swimming back toward the engines and went to clear the line. The big fish had eaten the pilchard and was sitting
under the boat. Christina fought the fish from the motors to the bow of the boat where I gaffed a nice 14# bull dolphin. By then the wind picked up as the rain approached us and we headed back toward shore and TNT Marine
Center.
Monday (6/25) was a corporate trip that required 2 boats. Captain Joe McGivern borrowed a boat and we each had 4 anglers on board. R. Dennis O'Riley was treating his employees and their spouses to a day of fishing for their outstanding efforts throughout the last year. On board my boat was Helen & Geoff Ehrlichman and Chris & Karl Staub. The ladies were the employees and their husbands were reaping the benefits. We bought bait from Greenline Mike and then added a few dozen herring for good measure. We ran out in calm seas with the wind from the NNW/ENE @ 0 - 11 knots. The first weedline we found had a rope mixed in with the grass and we caught a few small bar jacks. On the next line, we slow trolled up a small schoolie that was released. The next line produced a large bluerunner. Joe ventured a bit further out and found nothing. We both headed south and I found several birds working and more sitting on the water. Once the sitting ones got up, they found fish quickly. We put out the Kaplan jigs to keep up with them and then the action started. We pulled a school of 5 - 9 pound fish to the boat and everyone got in on the action with both live bait and casting jigs.
Joe was just offshore and a bit to the north of us doing the same thing. Geoff had a line burner of a strike and it turned out to be a wahoo. When our action slowed, Joe told me they were on a pallet and still had fish. We moved up that way and Geoff spotted the tripletail about the same time that I did. On his first cast with the Kaplan jig, we caught a tripletail. Then another. With all the activity around the pallet I just knew that there had to be a wahoo or two under it. We dropped a 4 ounce deep jig and pulled it back up and got a nice reward in the form of a 15 pound wahoo caught by Karl. Back to the pallet and another tripletail for Geoff. On the second drop, we saw the hit by another wahoo, but missed the hook up. We went right back and the third time the wahoo didn't miss. This time it was Geoff's turn to catch another 15# wahoo. We tried a few more drops and didn't have any further action. Both boats started running back in to finish the day looking for a kingfish or bonito. the area I stopped in had no current, green nasty looking water and was loaded with grass. After having to clear all my lines from grass, it was time to get back out to some good clean blue water. We ran back out and set up with flatlines, deep baits, and the kite (the wind had picked up just enough to fly a light air kite) with two lines on it. As I was tending to the flatlines, I noticed as did everyone else that the short kite bait was being taken by a sailfish. Chris got on the rod and had her hands full while I was clearing the deep bait and flatlines to give chase to a not to happy sailfish. It was dumping line off the reel at a fantastic rate and the only thing Chris could do was hang on. Karl was by her side to assist her. We started making progress and caught up with the fish to only have it go ballistic with jumps and take
off again. It tried to sound and we kept it from going to deep. By now, Chris had enough and Karl took over. He make a couple of trips around the boat before he passed the rod off to Geoff. He took a trip or two around the boat before I was finally able to bill the fish. We took several pictures and released a healthy fish that swam off wondering what had just happened. It was a great way to end a great day of fishing.
Tuesday (6/25) John Fabian and his son Ryan spent some good quality time together fishing. Today was the first day in a long time that we had to really search hard to put together a decent amount of bait. It required stopping in three different locations. With bait accomplished, we started running offshore with the wind from the NNE/E @ 6 - 15 knots. We stopped on the color change for about 15 minutes in hopes of quickly catching a sailfish. It didn't happen, so off we went in search of dolphin. On the first weedline, we found a large blue plastic barrel that held no fish. Up ahead, the birds were working so we ran up to them and then beyond them where we found a large school of small fish swimming under the grass. We had a ball catching them on the Kaplan jig and releasing all of them including one that was of keeper size. We moved on in hopes of finding some larger fish. The further we ran out, the bigger the seas got. At the 56 line, we found our friends the birds working over some fish and trolled up a few more small fish. With having seen nothing encouraging as we ran further out, we turned back toward shore to concentrate on trying for a sailfish once again. On the way in, we found another group of birds and caught another dolphin before getting in to sailfish range. While swimming the kite baits back out to deeper water, we picked up a large summer (bomber) time bonito on the short kite bait. That was our last hit of the day to go along with the 18 dolphin we had caught earlier in the trip.
As you can see, the dolphin fishing has ranged from lots of small fish to several trips with good to decent size fish. Find some large floating debris and there will probably be some nice wahoo under it. Find the right conditions and there are still sailfish to be caught and any day now the main body of large bonito should show up for some fast and furious light tackle action. Give me a call and lets get out there and catch some fish.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Cell
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net
