What Happened to the Grouper Post?

With Grouper season opening just a couple of days ago I be you were expecting a Grouper post right?  Well, no can do.  With the opening of Grouper Season there was also an opening of the skys.  We had some spectacular lightning and torrential rain.  that all that unusual for the Keys.

What was unusual was the computer failures following the lightning.  At Pancho's Fuel Dock ther was a nice 80 foot or so yatch that spent the night and fueled up in the morning.  When they prepare to head out, they noticed that their ship's/yatch's computer system would not start any of the bildge pumps.  So they had to jump out the computer system and install manual switches for the pumps.  Boring boat stuff right?

Well across the canal, Burdine's Marina had a complete computer failure an could not pump fuel.  Two computer fairly close together with simultaneous major malfunctions during a kick butt thunderstorm.  No, lightning did not strike both of the computers.  So what happened?

Dark Ligthning  Dark lightning is also known as a terrestrial gamma ray burst.  The super high static electrical energy of the Thunder clouds produces not only Electrons but their anti-matter counter part, Positrons.  When the two collide they mutually annihilate producing high energy gamma rays.  Gamma rays are the type of nuclear radiation that requires the thick lead shielding to prevent damage.  With the cloud gamma ray burst directly over head, it is a likely cause of the computer failures.  

Moral of the story; have manual back-ups for critical systems. 

Since I was a bit busy avoid both the Dark and white lightning, plus dealing with horizontal rain finding every possible opening into the RV, today was a clothes washing and hunt up missing stuff day.  So any of you want to risk a quick fishing vacation between weird weather events, give me a call, I think the worst of it is over for this week.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Wahoo at the Seven Mile Bridge

I took Pete, the new owner of the Seven Mile Grill, fishing the other day to show him basic windy day fishing stuff.  We fished the Seven Mile Bridge and caught a fair amount of Mangrove Snapper and yellow jacks.  While fishing I told him some of the stories about big smoker king mackerel that will move close to the brige on ocassion, big porgies, cobia, permit, pompano and all the other things that I have caught at the bridge but are not real target fish since they tend to move around a lot.

Pete caught on pretty well and took one of his buddies to the same are a couple of days ago.  They caught plent for dinner but also hook a wahoo up twice.  I know, they must have been drinking right? 

Well, when the Gulf Stream gets really close, like it was last week, it is not all that unusual for offshore fish to come up in the sand or shallow water.  I have seen sailfish and even tiny marlin in the Hawk Channel along with a 200 plus pound YellowFin Tuna on the patches under these kind of conditions.  It is rare, but does happen.  That adds a lot of credibility to their story along with the fact they are sticking to it while catching a lot of grief for having such an outrageous tale. 

The winds btw still suck, but the fishing is great.  The few days that a boat can get offshore, the dolphin and tuna are biting and you don't have to go much past 600 feet to catch them.  The tarpon are doing their thing mainly on the first half of the outgoing tide and the yellow tail guys are bringing in  more flags than normal.  Since Grouper season opens in a few days, FINALLY!, there will be a lot better reports then.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Finally, Really Nice Weather.

The past two trips have been a pleasure, just like old times.  They were patch reef and bridge short half days with the new owner of the 7 Mile Grill. The trips were just quick afternoons when he could get away from business.  YellowTail Snapper, Margrove Snapper, Cero Mackerel and Yellow Jacks were the main menu items for the guys at the grill, but we did miss a few pretty interesting fish that may need another visit when Grouper Season opens up at the first of the month.

I have heard a few reports from offshore that seem to be getting better.  Not very many slammer dolphin yet to report, but there are more heavy swingers/light gaffers being brought to the dock.  Sam Nelson and Jeff Knapp are both back into the Tarpon thing.  We watch Sam release a nice fish Monday afternoon on the first half of the outgoing tide.  That is typical for this time of the year as most fish tend to chew a little better at the first of the outgoing at the bridge.

There are tons of Mangroves at the bridge, but unfortunately there are tons of small mangroves at the bridge.  That means that the right bait and a little patience is required to catch the larger fish.  Small Pinfish and Pilchards, if you can find them, are the best baits.  The live shrimp are too tasty for the little guys, but if you want a mess of pan sized fish quick, they will do the trick.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,

Capt. Dallas

Is it Spring Yet?

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted much on fishing lately.  That is mainly due to weather.  I had a trip about 10 days ago.  The weather report was not great, but sounded doable.  Had the weather report been right, it would have been a fun day.  Instead, we experienced 30 knots winds out of the due south from 10 O'clock to 2 O'clock.  That sucked for me, but for the crew that trusted the weather report for their vaction, it really sucked.  That was probably the worst 7 day forecast I have ever seen.

I should have been a weather forecaster.  Now you can be right only 70% of the time and still get paid.

I have been holding off on posts so that I can pick times when it would be great to come down to enjoy the Florida Keys Fishing Experience instead of the Florida Keys Weather Experience.  However this post is just to let folks know I am still kickin'.

MM	DD	TIME (EDT)		WDIR	WSPD kts	GST kts	WVHT ft	DPD sec	APD sec	MWD	PRES in	PTDY in	ATMP °F	WTMP °F	DEWP °F	SAL psu	VIS nmi	TIDE ft
04	06	7:00 am		N	17	19	-	-	-	-	29.99	+0.03	65.8	-	61.9	-	-	1.37
04	06	6:00 am		N	19	21	-	-	-	-	29.97	+0.00	67.3	-	59.9	-	-	1.32
04	06	5:00 am		NNW	20	22	-	-	-	-	29.97	+0.00	66.9	-	59.4	-	-	1.05
04	06	4:00 am		NNW	23	25	-	-	-	-	29.96	-0.02	67.5	-	60.1	-	-	0.72
04	06	3:00 am		NNW	25	26	-	-	-	-	29.97	-0.01	67.3	-	61.9	-	-	0.42
04	06	2:00 am		NNW	21	22	-	-	-	-	29.97	+0.01	68.4	-	62.6	-	-	0.16
04	06	1:00 am		NNW	20	22	-	-	-	-	29.98	+0.03	68.7	-	63.5	-	-	-0.03
04	06	12:00 am		NNW	22	24	-	-	-	-	29.98	+0.05	69.4	-	64.2	-	-	0.02
04	05	11:00 pm		NNW	26	27	-	-	-	-	29.96	+0.07	69.6	-	65.5	-	-	0.25
04	05	10:00 pm		NNW	17	20	-	-	-	-	29.96	+0.08	70.0	-	69.6	-	-	0.60
04	05	9:00 pm		NW	14	15	-	-	-	-	29.93	+0.06	71.2	-	70.9	-	-	1.03
04	05	8:00 pm		WNW	9	10	-	-	-	-	29.89	+0.09	70.9	-	69.4	-	-	1.39
04	05	7:00 pm		W	9	10	-	-	-	-	29.87	+0.00	68.5	-	68.2	-	-	1.60
04	05	6:00 pm		NW	13	14	-	-	-	-	29.86	-0.02	65.8	-	65.5	-	-	1.67
04	05	5:00 pm		NNE	32	34	-	-	-	-	29.81	-0.07	69.8	-	69.6	-	-	1.60
04	05	4:00 pm		ENE	2	2	-	-	-	-	29.87	-0.06	74.5	-	71.6	-	-	1.26
04	05	3:00 pm		SW	5	5	-	-	-	-	29.89	-0.08	74.8	-	72.9	-	-	0.98
04	05	2:00 pm		S	14	16	-	-	-	-	29.88	-0.13	73.9	-	69.4	-	-	0.62
04	05	1:00 pm		SSE	18	19	-	-	-	-	29.94	-0.05	72.1	-	71.2	-	-	0.37
04	05	12:00 pm		SE	5	6	-	-	-	-	29.97	-0.01	70.9	-	69.6	-	-	0.19

 That is the kind of wind patterns we are having.  So I am not going to be providing much weather advice until there is more of one color or the other.  I will joint any petitions to incarcerate Puxitawney Phil that are being pasted around. 

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

Tight lines,
Capt. Dallas

Come on Down

Since my usual Dec. Jan. spurt, it has been slow down here.  Not all that unusual, though with 3 foot of snow falling in some areas I was expecting more visitors.  I got out yesterday on a boating 101 more than a fishing 101, but I did have to take a rod and a little bait, so there was Mangrove Snapper for dinner like it or not.

I get a few of the Boating 101 type trips which are sometimes a Real Estate 101, folks thinking about buying vacation homes or lining up larger family reunion type vacations like to take a water front tour before getting serious.  A few places have actually been sold and a good number are getting spruced up, which is always a good sign.

Bait in the area has been tough to find until recently.  Yesterday, there were plenty of balleyhoo and I saw a good number of cigar minnows and a few thread fin herring in the bay.    As far as the other guys, in general most have been on the slow side, so I don't feel all that bad.  There have been some nice catches, Cobia, Mutton, Mangrove, Yellowtails and such, but grouper season is still closed thanks to out incredibly intelligent marine fisheries commission.

I am at Pancho's tommorrow then if the weather is okay have a fishing 101 on Saturday.  That is scheduled to be a Bay trip so the weather is a little less of a factor.  The Mackerel are still pretty thick and with the Balleyhoo, I think there should be some bigger King or Cobia around to play with.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,

 Capt. Dallas

The Backyard

I could have had a trip today if I had wanted to blow some smoke up a butt.  I didn't and my customer found a guide with a flats boat on a trailer so he could fish the backyard even with the wind up a bit.  Well folks, that's why I settled in Marathon, the Heart of the Florida Keys.  I don't have any heartburn at all with one of my customers having a good time with another guide.  Had I had a flats or a bay boat on a trailer, I would have taken him, but I don't.  Working on that :)

The image above is part of the Backyard that you can see using Google Earth.  There is a lot of Backyard!  Lots of critters to play with and the scenery is not too shabby.  Since I have a customer planning on coming down in a few months with a 17 foot Boston Whaler, I thought this was a fine time for this post.  I have guided the back country from Marathon and Key West and the fishing is truly world class.  So I recommended that my new customer think about keeping his boat on the trailer so we can explore more of the Keys.  I don't know every nook and cranny in the back country, but a lot of the adventure is in the exploration.  Plus I know enough good spots to generally look pretty good.

Where he is staying is close to a lot of excellent action.  If the weather cooperates, we can stay right in the area and have a great time.  If the wind is up a touch, we can throw the boat on the trailer and avoid getting our butts handed to us on the way to a sheltered fishing hole.  To figure out where one of those sheltered fishing holes might be, take a look at Google Earth.

I haven't sprung for the higher resolution version, but just the normal version shows channels pretty well and some of the deep holes and drop offs by flats and islands.  So if you are a back country kinda guy that likes spinning a fly gear with enough patience to hunt for adventure, this is a good start.

Just to wet our appetite, this was taken in the Backyard.

Marathon in the Florida Keys should be your next fishing vacation destination. Join us for charter fishing, fishing guide trips or our fishing 101 so you can fish on your own with better success.

 Tight lines,
 Capt. Dallas