The windy and rainy weather has continued for almost the first half of October with a day or two decent weather during this period. Mother Nature has finally given us a break and the past two days have been gorgeous. The blue water and good north current continues to be out in much deeper water. This has made for some slow fishing in on the reef. The bright spot has been that we are getting decent dolphin catches out in the blue water as they migrate back south. The fish are being found over a very wide range with the best catches coming inside of 600 feet when you find weedlines and floating debris.
Lets get caught up with the few trips I've been able to get out on thus far this month. As you'll see, the dates cover a good deal of time and most everything in between has been windy and rainy which resulted in cancelled or postponed trips.
Thursday (10/4) was the best day weather wise in a while. The wind was NNE/E @ 3 - 7 knots. The bluer water started at around 700 feet and didn't turn hard blue until about 1000 feet. Dolphin was the targeted species and running and gunning was the technique. We found numerous weak weedlines and patches that we worked with no results. As we continued our search, Glenn Young spotted a large piece of bamboo. He got the first cast to it with his fly rod before we threw out the live baits. He got the hit, however, he didn't hook up. Then we saw the school of fish and the live baits turned the trick. Richard Labauve and Tom Mathias both hooked up and Glenn stuck with the fly outfit. After landing his first fish, I gave Richard a rod with a pink/white jig tied by Geoff Ehrlichman. The dolphin fought each other to be the first one to eat the jig. When the action stopped, we had 8 fish in the box. We continued to use the run and gun technique and fish anything that would possibly hold dolphin. After a while I spotted a blue plastic barrel. Glenn once again drew the fish to us and the livies did their trick again. This time Glenn hooked up solid with his fly outfit and brought the fish boat side. The jig and live baits gave us more action and this time we added 6 more fish to the box. We had no further action that day either offshore or in on the reef where the water was an ugly green with no current.
Wednesday (10/17) Paul Smith was on vacation and looked forward to a day fishing. The wind calmed down the evening before and we were greeted with wind from the WNW/SSE @ 2 - 7 knots. We loaded the livewell with pilchards and started the day by slow trolling in the 100 - 180 foot range. We worked a wreck off the Twin Towers and the area from south of the Sea Buoy to the middle of the Anchorage. Our efforts produced no hits and no fish. It was time to run out a bit and try something else. We found blue water and fairly large weed patches that held no fish. There were lots of slicks, some with weeds and some without. Still no fish. We ran south and found more large patches. These patches were loaded with bait, but no fish. We heard about a major weedline in 500 feet south of Government Cut and ran back in to check it out. It was the best weedline I've seen in the past two years of dolphin fishing. It had everything that dolphin fisherman dream about. The weed was lined up beautifully, it was loaded with debris from boards, bamboo, barrels, ropes, and buoys. We trolled south down the line and never came to the end of it and despite how good it appeared to be, we still found no fish. I turned around and started back north. This time I slow trolled live baits. We finally broke the ice and caught a schoolie size dolphin. We continued on and it was time to start wrapping things up. As I was stowing the downrigger, the two flatlines and downrigger line got hit and we had a tripe header hook up. The dolphin proceeded to sew the lines together as we frantically did our best to un-sew them. In the process, we had one fish jump off and kept two hooked up. I saw another fish swim by and got it hooked up and we were back to three fish on. The first was a 10 pound bull. The second and third were schoolie size cows of 5 - 6 pounds. Talk about your last minute fish. Just goes to show that it isn't over till you pull the last bait out of the water. Four fish turned into fillets that filled two 1 gal Zip lock bags and plenty of fish for several dinners for Paul.
Now that the weather has returned to a more normal pattern, we'll be able to get out and do some more fishing. Give me a call to book a trip.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Cell
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net