We've turned the calendar page from January to February. With that turn, tarpon inshore and sailfish offshore are your best bet. That's a hard combination to beat. With that being said, lets get to the individual day reports.
Thursday (2/1) evening the wind was SSE/S @ 21 - 25 knots. Haulover was fishable, however the tarpon were absent. The tide change for one of my Bay spots was supposed to be 9:05 PM. With all that wind, it held the tide up until about 10:30 PM. While we were waiting, we caught and released 3 ladyfish and 2 seatrout using live shrimp and 4" Tsunami Holographic Shrimp in Chartreuse/Silver Fleck. More on the Tsunami shrimp later. We finally had 1 shot at a nice 50 pound tarpon. It made 2 jumps while coming straight at us. At some point, a slack loop got thrown around the rod. About the time I got it cleared, the fish made a third jump and give us back our hook.
Friday (2/2) evening the wind had calmed down to S @ 11 - 14 knots. On our first drift at Haulover, we hooked up with 100 pounds of silver dynamite. The fish kept us occupied for about a half hour before we got the pictures we needed and released it. The fish was nice enough to make some great jumps right at the boat and quick work by two different cameras got the action shot. The rest of the evening we worked from the Inlet south to the end of the tarpon hole twice with no other strikes.
Saturday (2/3) the plan was to make a drift or two and try for tarpon before heading offshore and doing some sailfishing. We did both, however, the tarpon fishing lasted longer than we planned. We had light wind conditions coming from the WSW/N @ 3 - 9 knots. This gave us a very slow drift. After setting up the first drift with live shrimp, I spotted a large school of tarpon working their way toward us from the south. A quick reset of our drift to intercept these fish resulted in a hook up. The fight lasted about 45 seconds before the hook pulled. Meanwhile, there was a school of fish moving south from the Inlet and yet another bunch of fish that were just milling around just out of casting distance. I moved ahead of the milling fish and reset the drift. This resulted in hooking a monster tarpon that looked to weigh around 140 pounds. This fish made a short run and struck its head, gills, and about a 1/4 of its body out of the water and shook. The result was another thrown hook. Meanwhile, the Lady Lo contacted me and said they were 0 for 3 on sailfish. What a dilemma!! We decide to get our bait and head offshore. A quick stop at Lester's Live Bait for pilchards and offshore we went only to run into some thick fog. We got out to the right depth about the time the fog began to clear. We started by slow trolling two big pilchards and within 5 minutes, we hooked up with a beautiful sailfish. Stephen Brunt did a fantastic job of fighting his first sail and after about 20 minutes we had the fish boatside. As quick as the action started, it shut off. One final attempt at tarpon before heading in had us seeing two fish but no hook ups.
Saturday (2/3) evening the wind picked up to N @ 18 - 20 knots. It drizzled on us several times and the seas were for only the strong of stomach. On our third drift we hit pay dirt. I had three rods out. Two with live shrimp and 1 with a Tsunami Holographic Clear/Red Fleck Shrimp. The third drift produced a doubleheader. The first bait to get hit was the Tsunami Shrimp and then the stern live shrimp. We landed one of the two fish. It was a 100 pound tarpon that gave Phil all he could ask for. The fish made three jumps at boatside that were nothing short of spectacular. On one of the jumps, he came out from under the boat and jumped away from us. The fish would have easily cleared a 6 foot high jump bar. The next drift had us hooked up again to one of the most stubborn fish I've had on in a very long time. About 20 minutes into the fight we got the leader to touch the rod tip. At that point, the fish made a long run and then went down to the bottom. It then refused to let us pull it up any higher than the double line knot breaking the surface. This went on for the next 45 minutes until the heavy drag setting and heavy pressure that Cy Mager was putting on the line finally over taxed it and the line parted just above the doubleline.
As you can see, there are sailfish and tarpon. The tarpon are big, mean, and nasty. They'll tax your angling skills and give up line only begrudgingly. For those of you who like to cast artificial baits, the Tsunami Holographic Shrimp are getting busted.
Give me a call and schedule your tarpon or sailfish trip. Ask about the afternoon/evening trip where you can get a chance to catch both species on one trip.
See you on the edge or at the Inlets.
Captain Dave Kostyo
Knot Nancy Fishing Charters
305 620-5896 Charter
305 965-9454 Cell
nkostyo@bellsouth.net