We are definitely in our summer mode of fishing. It requires lots of work to put together a decent catch. Also, the afternoon thunder boomers and potential for waterspouts require a watchful eye.
On the dolphin fishing scene, lots of searching is required. On most days, there has been little to fish to and when you do find something, it is holding lots of bait and few if any dolphin. Birds are your best friend and learning how to read their flight pattern will improve your chances of having a successful trip. Blind trolling has produced many of the fish being caught.
In on the reef, there have been a few kingfish both in shallow and also out deep. By shallow, I mean 40 - 60 feet and deep is 180 - 225. Although there are some bonito around, they have yet to make their huge summer showing. Mixed in with them is the occasional blackfin tuna. Sailfish are spread out over a wide depth range and chumming with live pilchards or herring will improve your chances if there are any in the area that you're fishing.
Friday (7/13) Captain Gil Gutierrez and I fished out front of Haulover Inlet for a few hours. Bait fishing both inside and outside of the Inlet was a breeze and we ran out to the reef with a livewell full of various size herring. We had wind from the ESE/S @ 1 - 9 knots and a decent north current. Drifting was showing us no action, so I started slow trolling with both flatlines and downrigger. The downrigger produced 1 kingfish and a triggerfish. The flatline produced 1 bonito out of 4 that busted our chummers. We also had a sailfish chasing our free ones, however, it just couldn't find our hooked bait.
Sunday (7/15) was a dolphin trip with John & Rachel Perkins, their friend Brad Coren, and Harold Coren who is Brad's cousin. We bought bait from Greenline Mike at Haulover. Then we added a few larger baits in the form of herring before running offshore. We found lots of slicks with little to no weed in them. We found small pieces of wood and bamboo with no fish around or below
them. We found birds who were searching like we were. We put out the dolphin juniors and blind trolled them for a while with no results. We started running further offshore toward another slick when I spotted a frigate bird and several terns working the surface very hard. We ran to the area threw out a half dozen live chum baits, hooked a live herring on a line and it got hit while I was putting it out. John took the rod and was hooked up with a 16 1/2 pound cow dolphin. I put out a live pilchard and set the rod in a holder. As I was about to gaff John's fish, the other bait got hit and this time it was Harold's turn. His turned out to be a 17 1/2 pound cow dolphin. This action took place 23.9 miles ESE of Haulover. The birds were long gone, so we headed south. I stopped on a good looking slick and set up a drift. The flatlines went untouched, however, we hooked up on the downrigger that I had down 100 feet. We never got to see what the fish was, as the hooks pulled. It was time to start running in. At 13 miles out, we found the best conditions we had seen all day. The slick actually had a line of scattered grass in it. Out went the juniors and before long, John spotted several terns working to our north. We high speed trolled to the area and knew that there we fish there. They didn't even look at the artificials. In they came and out went the live baits. Instant action with small dolphin. They were all of the throw back variety from 18 - 19 1/2 inches. As quickly as the birds had put us on the fish, they took off in several different directions and so did the fish, but not before we caught and released 5 fish.
There are still fish out there to be caught. It just requires a lot of hard work, lots of running, reading your surroundings, changing tactics on the fly, and a bit of luck.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Cell
www.knotnancy.com
nkostyo@bellsouth.net
