Mahi Madness
Report Date: December 6, 2011
We have yet to get a break from the stiff northeast breeze this past month. Usually this time of year it will blow for a few weeks, and then give us a three or four day window with nice weather. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened. The wind hasn’t stopped blowing for about three months.
With strong east winds, for this long duration, means one thing. Mahi madness! The dolphin fishing has been off the charts for about three weeks straight. Every day I’ve been out this month I have caught between 5 and 30 nice sized mahis. The strong easterly winds have blown these fish up on the reef, as shallow as 50 ft.( which is only about two miles offshore).
Aside from the dolphin there have been a good amount of sailfish, kingfish, snapper, grouper, amberjack, cobia, and your occasional wahoo.
November has been a very busy month ,with your seldom cancellation, due to the heavy wind and high seas. I had Ion Tulei and his dad out for a morning half last week. We caught a well full of pilchards and went mackerel fishing for the first few hours. It wasn’t long before we had twenty nice Spanish macs and about ten big blue runners in the boat. Ion later decided he wanted to take his dad out a little bit further in pursuit of a bigger game fish. We made our first drift in about three hundred feet of water. A few moments later we were covered up with mahi. We were fighting a few mahis when Ions dad pointed out a nice sailfish jumping on the other side of the boat. Ion landed the sail and we called it quits to end the day on a positive note.
I had another father son trip a few days later with a good customer of mine, Dmitri. Dmitri likes to bottom fish so we decided to hit a few deep ship wrecks. The first wreck we hit was on fire. We caught four big amberjacks and two cobia up to fifty pounds. Both Dmitri and his dad were sore from fighting the bruiser jacks and the cobias so we decided to troll on a weedline and head back towards home. We picked up 15 nice mahis and headed towards the barn to end the day with another good trip.
I went swordfishing with a friend of mine Peter Rans, who owns and operates the charterboat Overproof out of Bermuda. Peter is a hardcore fisherman and didn’t mind fishing in 6-8 ft seas for three days straight. The first day we fished was quite impressive. We had sword bites all day long. We ended up catching three swords up to 150lbs and pulled four more off right under the boat. The next two days we didn’t catch any swords but had plenty of bites. Some times it is hard to keep the swordfish glued when you are bobbing up and down like an apple in the rough seas.
My last trip of the month was with a good client of mine Sam and his friend Jerry. We fished out of Miami. With the live wells loaded to the top we had high intentions on catching some serious fish. We started the morning out mackerel fishing. The mackerel fishing was slow but managed to catch five descent sized ones. Our next plan of attack was to run the edge south for mahis and later deploy the kites in hope of a sailfish. On the way down south Sam notice a big tree in the water. We threw some live baits in and caught five nice dolphin. We ran a bit further south and put the kites up. Jerry and Sam put a few flat lines out and I was working the kites. With in minutes, Sam and Jerry were doing battle with a double header sailfish. We fished the edge for a little while longer and caught one more sailfish and a few bonitas . Our next plan of attack was to fish a ship wreck. The wreck was good to us allowing us to take four nice amberjacks and an African pompano. This was a stellar day with good people and good memories.
As you can see fishing off Miami is wide open . Whether it be drifting the inlets for tarpon or catching your first sailfish, now is the time to bend the rod. There are a lot of different species to fish for. So lets get your family and friends together and enjoy an exciting day out on the water. Also, gift certificates are available for the holiday's.
Season Greetings!
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